Restating the U. S. policy of nuclear deterrence

Over the last several days Iran’s nuclear program has made the headlines on nearly a daily basis:

November 15, 2004 Iran agrees to suspend uranium enrichment
November 17, 2004 Iranian group claims ‘new’ nuke facility in Tehran
November 18, 2004 Powell: Intelligence suggests Iran trying to adapt missiles for nukes

This flurry of stories has occasioned a variety of responses in the blogosphere, mostly expected—from denial to extremely hard-line (“nuke ’em now”) positions. I’ve made the comment on several blogs that I think it’s time for a public restatement of the United States’s policy of nuclear deterrence.

A brief history of the policy

The current U. S. doctrine is that we would respond to any attack with unconventional weapons with a massive retaliation in kind. This has been our policy since the 1940’s before nuclear weapons existed as a deterrent to the possible use of chemical or bacteriological weapons by Germany or Japan.

Japan apparently did use unconventional weapons against the Chinese but it is believed that fear of retaliation in kind prevented either Germany or Japan from using such weapons against the United States or Britain.

It’s interesting to note that the Geneva Conventions banning chemical and bacteriological weaponry may have been a positive inducement for Japan to develop such weapons in the mistaken belief that they could use such weapons without fear of a response in kind see here:

“In one case, Japan, the Geneva Protocol actually encouraged the development of BW since it convinced its military that the use of biological weapons in war could give Japan an advantage over its technologically advanced opponents. ”

The World War II experience provides some evidence that a policy of deterrence through massive retaliation in kind is effective in preventing a first strike using unconventional weapons. This policy carried over into the Cold War with respect to nuclear weapons.

Over the years the policy has undergone some evolution from massive retaliation in kind to mutually assured destruction—the commitment that no belligerent could expect to survive a first strike with nuclear weapons, to the Strategic Defense Initiative. Some believe that the Strategic Defense Initiative has actually undermined the policy of deterrence by making survivability of a first strike an actual possibility.

But deterring nuclear attack by the threat of a massive retaliation in kind remains the policy of the United States.

The nature of deterrence

Deterrence as a strategy actually has several components. The first component, obviously, is that you must have the weapons yourself. The second component is that you must have the ability to deliver the weapons. The third component is a psychological component: possible enemies must be convinced that you will, in fact, respond. Just as a nuclear arsenal and delivery systems need refurbishing over time so does the psychological component and, in my opinion, we have been remiss in not forcibly and unmistakeably restating our policy.

I believe that deterrence continues to be an effective strategy when applied to state actors and may also be considerably more effective than it appears right now in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and, especially, nuclear weapons falling into the hands of non-state actors if the psychological component is enhanced and revised to address the threats we’re likely to face today.

Objections

A recent post on nuclear deterrence on American Future drew several comments on another blog. The blogger at American Future, Marc Schulman, outlines the responses in this post. In summary the responses were that a nuclear response to a nuclear terrorist attack was itself terrorism, a nuclear retaliation would inevitably draw other state actors to escalate the exchange, a nuclear retaliation would be collective punishment, and attacking Muslim holy sites would be counterproductive. I agree with this last point but I want to deal with each of the other points in some detail.

  • A nuclear response to a nuclear terrorist attack is terrorism.There’s no generally accepted definition of terrorism so before tackling this point I’ll propose one. Ignoring the issue of state actors vs. non-state actors I think that a terrorist attack is an attack on civilians or civilian assets whose purpose is to provoke terror. It has no other tactical or strategic significance.

    Any nuclear response by the United States would be against military or governmental facilities, sites involved in military production, or command and control. The objective would be to eliminate the possibility of future attacks or the support for those who would engage in future attacks. That such a response would inevitably result in massive civilian casualties is sad. But such a response would not, by definition, be terrorism

  • A nuclear retaliation Iran in response to a terrorist nuclear attack would inevitably draw France, Russia, and China to enter the conflict.To believe this you must believe that France, Russia, and China will act irrationally. There is absolutely no reason to believe that this is the case. All three nations know that their intervention against the U. S. would result in total annihilation. There are other issues as well and let’s examine the two distinct cases: Russia on the one hand and France and China on the other.

    As a major non-Gulf producer of oil Russia would be in a position to benefit enormously in case of a disruption of Gulf oil production or shipment. That being the case they would publicly deplore a retaliation against Iran but privately rejoice.

    Both France and China are in an extremely delicate position. A nuclear response by either would result in total annihilation and, equally importantly, wouldn’t keep the oil flowing. Lack of a blue water navy means that both nations are completely at the mercy of the United States’s (or more specifically the U. S. Navy’s) willingness to keep shipments of oil moving out of the Gulf. China is particularly vulnerable since it has only about two weeks’ worth of strategic oil reserves. Neither France nor China has any real ability to project military force other than nuclear force beyond their borders. They’d be upset. But they’re in no position to do anything about it.

  • A nuclear retaliation would be collective punishment.
  • This is an argument that also fails on definitional grounds. The laws of war do not require that a nation categorically preclude non-combatants from injury merely that they not be targeted. Once again civilian casualties would be sad but neither criminal nor immoral so long as military, military production, command and control, government, etc. facilities were the targets.

Towards a new policy of deterrence

The continued acquisition of nuclear weapons by unfriendly, unstable, and unpredictable state actors seems inevitable in the absence of any real commitment by the United States or any one else for that matter to prevent it. This new reality calls for a strong public re-statement of our nuclear deterrence policy. A nuclear deterrence policy in an age of terrorism by non-state actors should include an unmistakeable commitment that state supporters of terrorism should not expect to survive any nuclear attack by terrorists regardless of specific support for the attack. Time’s a wastin’.

UPDATE: I did want to make one more point on the subject of public discussion. We have just missed our most significant opportunity to have a public discussion on the subject of our policy of nuclear deterrence. We were too busy discussing military service from thirty years ago, TANG paysheets, artificial respiration to hamsters, and homogamy. While some of these may be very important issues to some of the voters not one of them is existential in nature. Our nuclear deterrence policy is.

Now the world’s greatest deliberative body is absorbed with the key issue of ethical rules that govern the conduct of the majority party in its sister house of the legislature. This is, again, not an existential issue. Enough already.

UPDATE: Citizen Smash is thinking along similar lines and contributes a timely observation:

Even if the weapon is delivered clandestinely, the source of the fissile material should be relatively simple to determine. There is no such thing as “100% pure” fissile material, and each batch has its own “signature” impurities.

Assuming that the origin of the weapon can be determined, we will then have to answer the question of how to respond. Do we retaliate only against attacks on our homeland? What about our allies? Or “neutral” countries? Is the use of a nuclear weapon such a terrible crime against humanity that it must be answered in kind, regardless of who was the intended target?

17 comments… add one
  • Well done post, Dave. A couple of comments:

    The United States did, under Ronald Reagan, switch from general ” countervalue” based MAD deterrence to ” counterforce” based MAD deterence targeting specifically Soviet government, KGB, Red Army and CPSU command and control. Of course, given the number of warheads and throw weight involved in a US-USSR nuclear exchange it was a distinction without a difference as far as Soviet civilians were concerned but it did indicate a doctrinal severing of the population from the regime in terms of prioritization.

    The ” collective punishment” crowd which seeks to prevent meaningful defense by the U.S. by indirection are relying on a legal opinion of the World Court ( ignored by the USG)leftists that a second-strike deterrence policy was illegal in terms of international law and was only justifiable at the moment that enemy missiles were en route.

    The lone dissenter wanted to go further and rule that the U.S. had no right to any kind of nuclear defense and legally just had to absorb a nuclear first strike. This is what passes for IL jurisprudence these days. And it’s one example why that particular rule-set needs replacement before we get an administration some daythat takes such claims seriously instead of viewing them as monstrous absurdities.

  • That’s a valuable clarification, Mark. Thanks.

    Your comment on the World Court highlights a misconception that’s pretty common nowadays: that there is something called international law. There ain’t no such animule. For there to be such a thing would require an enforcement mechanism that was independent of states and no such mechanism exists.

    What we do have is a series of treaties which the signatories themselves enforce. Or not.

  • Dave,

    Allow me to take issue with your definition of terrorism:

    “I think that a terrorist attack is an attack on civilians or civilian assets whose purpose is to provoke terror. It has no other tactical or strategic significance.”

    I guess it depends on how you define “strategic significance” and “provoke terror.”

    Some contend that the strategy of targeting civilains is an attempt to compel a certain adversary to acquiesce to political demands of one sort or another. By targeting civilians, the “terrorist” is attempting to make the costs of confrontation so onerous that the other side loses its resolve. Thus there is a strategic significance to the targeting of civilians. Would that mean they are not terrorists?

    Maybe you don’t consider this a strategic significance, and would say that any deliberate targeting of civilians is terrorism, even if there is an underlying political goal or a desire to force your opponenet to surrender.

    But how would either definition of this tactic handle the historicl tendency by many armies to target civilians as a means to induce surrender? It might sound strange to say, but many generals used terrorism – at least under certain definitions. It sounds strange only because the term has been associated with non-conventional armies and non-state actors, but as a tactic it is the same in quality.

    The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were close to falling under this definition. While there were certain military production facilities in Nagasaki, it is hard to argue that the point was not to make the costs of war seem so onerous on Japan so as to compel their surrender. That was accomplished by killing massive numbers of civilians, and the threat of further destruction in such a manner. The same could probably be said of the bombing raids in Dresden and Tokyo. And of course there is the long ignominious history of targeting Native American “civilians” in order to purge this country of its inhabitants.

    In the context of nuclear deterrence as the concept has been discussed, targeting Mecca with nuclear weapons as a response to a nuclear attack on the United States by terrorists who are not supported by Saudi Arabia would be very close to falling under the definition of terrorism. In fact, I think it would be hard to call it anything but (although I am not suggesting that you are advocating targeting religious sites per se, as I understand that is not your position).

  • As for your lament about wasted time and distracted discourse, I agree 100%. I hope you are not suggesting that it is a pathology of a particular party however. The evidence of both sides’ malfeasance is thick.

  • Eric wrote:

    “In the context of nuclear deterrence as the concept has been discussed, targeting Mecca with nuclear weapons as a response to a nuclear attack on the United States by terrorists who are not supported by Saudi Arabia would be very close to falling under the definition of terrorism.”

    Mecca is in the discussion for two reasons:

    First, the idea is not to destroy Mecca for revenge or because we do not like Muslims but because that being perceived as our response might cause self-restraint on the part of an Islamist terror group like al Qaida that obviously does not value Muslim lives. Mecca in other words, has a non-quantifiable value but one of great significance.

    Secondly, the Muslim world has an overlapping reality of Ummah and tribe that intersects and to a degree supercedes the nation-state. Moreover these states are not acting as responsible sovereign powers – having to a great extent, tolerated, cultivated and enabled these loose cannons for whom they now choose to accept no responsibility for having unleashed ( or not quashed). Well, that is not their choice to make, it’s ours.

    We would not put up with this situation for ten seconds if China was connected to an overseas Chinese terror group threatening to nuke Los Angeles. We would hold Beijing accountable.

    Holding the Ummah or the Pushtuns accountable is just a recognition of one of the dynamics of a region where the nation-state is not fully in charge and often uses that weakness to it’s advantage in terms of plausible deniability.

  • Mark,

    Regarding factor one of Mecca’s inclusion, it really comes down to a cost benefit analysis of probability of deterrence vs. inflaming passions and making Osama’s propaganda seem more accurate/prescient. I am not sure how to gauge this yet.

    Regarding the second point, and your analogy of China, it would depend on the level of “connection,” using the word you chose. For example, if domestic hate groups were to launch a terrorist attack inside China, involving nuclear weapons, would they be justified in bombing us in retaliation? Similarly, at what level would the hypothetical Chinese group have had to have support from the government. Would simply failing to “quash” them count?

    This matters because we must be sure to judge which governments are involved, at what level and to what extent. If an offshoot of al-Qaeda made up entirely of Kuwaiti nationals launching their operations from Kuwait justify a nuclear strike against Turkey? Saudi Arabia? Eqypt?

    Where is the line drawn? What criteria must be used? These are important questions to get clear answers to because we are talking about using nuclear weapons to annihilate millions of people.

    Caveat: I am not suggesting that American lives are worth less, I just do not agree that any and all lives taken as what some might perceive as “retribution” would be justified per se.

  • I think if the United States government fanned and subsidized anti-Chinese sentiment, was aware that anti-China terror groups were operating on American territory and did little to stop them even after vague nuclear threats were made then yes – if such a group nuked a Chinese city the Chinese would be correct to retaliate for our reckless disregard of our sovereign responsibilities.

    That being said I think this is a cost-benefit issue – though once we are hit by a nuke most normal considerations are rendered academic – and the issue of lines and responsibility should be debated fully. It’s not and that’s part of the problem. If we really are going to do something like this – and we well might if Boston or Kansas city vanish in a mushroom cloud – we really owe the world a fair warning like we gave the Soviets.

  • If that is your position on my China analogy, then I would say you are fairly consistent. I also have issues with Saudi Arabia’s complicity, and do not think they can be absolved by claiming innocence at this point in time – given their coddling of Wahhabism and al-Qaeda in the past.

    That being said, the picture gets murkier when talking about states that support groups with ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations. It is important to consider these differences now, and how far we would be willing to go with each country.

    Because if we were ever hit in such a way, people would not be prone to rational debate or reasoned judgment. People would be willing to launch attacks against any Muslim nation from the region, regardless of their role. Guilt would be assumed simply because of ethnic, religious and geographical similarities. For example, many Americans still believe that Saddam was behind 9/11.

  • Eric:

    Your second comment is the easiest to address. I’m an equal opportunity critiquer. A frivolous attitude to the most serious problems of the day is a bi-partisan problem. Neither party has a monopoly on it. The most common position seems to be if we ignore it it will go away.

    As to your first comment on the nature of terrorism I considered and rejected some of the issues you raised. When I attempted to formulate a responding comment I soon realized that the comment had exceeded comment length and needed to be a post on its own. I should have it up tomorrow—please check back for it.

  • I agree with the first point you make. We really cannot do much to prevent a state that is bent on getting the bomb from joining the club. We have neglected to make it clear that using said bomb will result in the destruction of that state. It is time we do so.

    The second point you make is not so cut and dry. You assume that, and Mark hits on this, nation-states can be held responsible for the actions of international terrorism. I think it is mistaken to gear a deterrence policy towards states when the greatest threat of nuclear attack comes from transnational Islamic terrorism. Attacking the state means little in the way of deterrence since most of these transnational terrorists have no loyalty and few binding ties to any state actors outside of sanctuary.

    The problem with a detterence policy against fluid, geographically diffuse, and decentralized groups is that it is wrought with too many unknowns. What is the threshold for deterrence on a group-to-group basis? Is Al Qaeda less deterrable than al Jamiya Islamiya? If so, what magnitude of retaliation is needed for the harder to deter? Is the destruction of the Kaaba at Mecca enough? Or is a broader counter-value strike neccesary? That raises the question about the aims of the groups in we seek to deter. Are they political or religious? Or does it differ from group to group? What are the groups willing to lose in order to achieve their goals? With a state you can get reasonably reliable answers these questions.

    I think we are trying to apply a Cold War anachronism to today’s very different threats. To me, these unresolved issues make the idea that we can deter nuclear terrorism dangerous. Aggressive interdiction is the only way, in my opinion, to meaningfully reduce the threat of nulear terrorism. I will concede, however, that deterrence could work in theory, but we would have no way of determining its efficacy.

  • Andrew,

    Thanks for joining the debate.

    Deterrence is a single policy with two objectives:

    To deter the terrorists DIRECTLY, by threatening the destruction of the only material things that seem to matter to them: the Islamic holy sites.

    To deter the terrorists INDIRECTLY, by threatening the destruction of the many material things that matter to people and governments that support or condone or ignore them. In this case, deterrence is achieved by making it more difficult for the terrorists to plan an attack and acquire the weapon(s) that would be used in an attack.

  • Den Valdron Link

    I have a few problems with this.

    First, I think you’ve got a tangible problem in actually managing to identify states with terrorist groups. Shall we hold Saudi Arabia hostage for Al Quaeda?

    Well, the Saudi’s expelled Osama Bin Laden back in 1994, they outlawed his organization, they want his head. Bin Laden carries out terrorist attacks against the Saudi government and Saudi facilities. Al Quaeda has an international membership which goes well beyond Saudi Arabia, and their bases and operations take place outside that country. The 9/11 operation was planned in Germany.

    So, how does a deterrent threat of this sort put meaningful pressure on Saudi Arabia? Or more to the point, what useful effect does it produce?

    How do you identify a meaningful threshold of support and encouragement for terrorism to justify nuking a country. People like to complain about Saudi Arabia’s religious practices and its coddling of Wahhabism. But very few, a vanishingly small number of Wahhabi’s become terrorists. Christian fundamentalism in its own way produces just as many terrorists. I wouldn’t say that Christian fundamentalism is defined by the Eric Rudolf’s and Timothy McVeigh’s, or by groups like The Order.

    The essence of terrorist groups is that they are non-state actors, with diffuse to nonexistent ties to states. With the possible exception of Kashmir, I can’t recall a single situation where a state controlled a major terrorist group or movement.

    Arguably, some states might be accused of supporting terrorism. But this designation in the United States seems as much political as realistic. It’s now well established that Saddam’s Iraq had no ties to Al Quaeda. Libya was one of the first countries to put a bounty on Osama Bin Laden’s head. Syria is so dead set against Islamic fundamentalism it’s killed 20,000 of them and handed over intelligence files to the US.

    Even where there is a non-political case, because of the covert and underground nature of terrorism and terrorist groups, hard evidence is often hard to find. And state linkages are often based more in speculation than in reality. Consider Saddam’s hypothetical weapons of mass destruction. But wmd’s were physical, left traces, required infrastructure… terrorist support is likely far easier to conceal or mask. In which case, your intelligence begins to be composed of supposition, guesswork, prejudice. States actual support of terrorism may go undetected, while states which didn’t support terrorists are fingered. How many innocent people are you willing to risk for a mistake.

    Articulating such a deterrent policy would only drive any connections deeper underground and make it almost impossible to finger a guilty target.

    If, on the other hand, you simply smash countries for ‘coddling’ groups or philosophies, then where do you draw your lines. Saudi Arabia’s government, as I’ve said, is opposed to Al Quaeda, Bin Laden and terrorism, and has suffered for it. Do you still smash them?

    Can you reasonably insist on a level of totalitarian efficiency in all the states of the world, to an extent that would have astonished Stalin, and which the US itself could not manage? Let’s get realistic.

    In short, the problem with the nuclear deterrent as I see it, is that it is ineffective. You’re imposing an impossible and un-implementable burden upon states to control matters which they do not control in many cases, have no ability to control or influence in many other cases, and where in the cases where there may be influence or support the evidence of that influence or support may simply not exist or be sufficient to any standard.

    All of which means that your nuclear deterrent is ineffective, and counterproductive. Worse, there is a moral component in that you are striking out at hundreds of thousands of innocent bystanders instead of the enemy.

    The second point, also goes to the ineffectiveness of the threat. A willingness to launch a nuclear attack on Mecca as a deterrent is only viable if the threat is made and believed.

    How are you going to do that? Keep in mind that terrorist groups are extremely diffuse structures organized along the lines of cells, without formal ‘western’ corporate and military hierarchy and decision making structures. This necessarily means that there will always be a diversity off groups and a diversity of opinions. Disagreements about tactics, methods and politics are resolved by continually hiving off new groups or factions. So, unless you’re prepared to actually nuke a target city as a demonstration, or some similar act, there’s always going to be a fair proportion who simply will not be convinced, and if they’re not convinced, you don’t have a deterrent.

    Of course, many might not even be aware of the deterrent threat. How do you get the information to them? Most of these groups don’t have addresses for registered mail. So you may have terrorist groups operating which are completely oblivious, either unaware of or unbelieving of the deterrent threat. There is always going to be someone who is unconvinced, for one reason or another. (And, just for argument’s sake, you have to assume that some may even accept the deterrent threat’s credibility, but be undeterred and entirely prepared to sacrifice Mecca for the greater good).

    And this creates its own problem. Assuming that one can announce and convince terrorist groups of the nature and stature of a deterrent threat, how do you keep that information from leaking out to the public of various states or to state governments.

    Arguably, you might want state governments to be informed of the threat. But what is their response? To go on ineffective pogroms in an impossible quest?

    I could see two viable courses of conduct – one is to obtain their own deterrent threat, in which case, the Saudi Arabian’s obtain their own nuclear weapons, as does every other half baked country.

    The other is to establish secure linkages/alliances with other countries with genuine nuclear deterrents for protection… Russia and China. In which case, the United States will be playing brinksmanship with countries which could reduce it to ashes… which is a reason why the US never invaded Cuba, and never used nukes against North Korea or North Vietnam.

    In which case, the principal effect of the deterrent threat is to seriously impair the US’s power and influence in the region, and to invite China, Russia and other nuclear powers in. That reduces stability and raises the risk in massive ways.

    The effect on populations of countries, if the threat is widely known and understood, is also likely to be counterproductive. The result would almost certainly be even more virulent anti-americanism, support for terrorism, and support for low level attacks against Americans and American targets. Any deterrent of a potential 9/11, speculative as that is, is offset by the near guarantee of 1001 cuts in the forms of bombings, assassinations and attacks on American targets throughout the world. Even more virulent anti-Americanism might make it impossible for pro-American states or parties or positions to form. What credible leader could rally his followers on a platform of support for a country which is threatening to nuke them?

    Finally, what happens when the deterrent is employed? Do you really think you can nuke a major city in Saudi Arabia and simply have them go “Oh well.” Odds are that a Saudi government would simply collapse and be replaced by a violently anti-American one, or would become violently anti-American.

    Now obviously, Saudi Arabia has minimal military capacity compared to the US. But what if they shut off the oil? Or triple the price? What if they employ their oil wealth in an attack on the American economy? It’s likely that every state in the region would follow the Saudi’s lead.

    Are you prepared to nuke another city if the Saudi’s threaten to dump their American currency and cause a run on the dollar? And if you are, at what point do you cross the moral theshold into violent lunacy?

    I’ll agree that in the event of such an action, no other state is likely to be able to take direct action against the US in the short term.

    But in the long term, such an action might well spell the end of American power. The US is now the second largest economy in the world and represents only 20% of the world’s GDP. Formidible, but not compared to the postwar years into the 1960’s, when the US represented 50% of the World’s GDP, and into the 80’s when the US was the largest economy in the world. The US is now huge, but no longer essential, and may be damaged or sunk by concerted economic and trade policies around the world. Do we really want to risk the impact of worldwide sanctions and boycots? Can American goods really be sold internationally with the mushroom cloud logo?

    As for military pre-eminence, that’s currently uncontested. But that’s only because it’s not being contested. Do you really want an arms race with China and Russia? Do you want Europe and India, perhaps Brazil and Japan, and every other country running in the arms race?

    Destroying Mecca may well spell the end of American diplomatic power, and if the perception is that the United States is an erratic and dangerously unpredictable and violent state, may impell America’s allies to abandon her, and may impell newly neutral and enemy states to act to defend themselves by obtaining or expanding their own nuclear deterrents, missiles, armies and navies.

    The international scene becomes far less stable, much more dangerous, and America far more isolated.

    The final issue to consider is that of the terrorism which provoked the response. There are a billion moslems. Nuke Mecca, and it’s not like they’ll scratch their heads, look at each other and go “Do you know if the Scientologists are still open.” The inevitable result would be millions upon millions of new terrorists, incredibly virulent terrorism, and a dedication which would transcend generations… a hundred years from now, they’ll still be killing Americans out of revenge. That’s hardly solving the problem.

    Finally, the population of Mecca is 550,000, with perhaps another million or two million pilgrims, 99.999999 of whom will be innocents. Given the circumstances, even a hiroshima sized fission kiloton detonation would likely produce between 100,000 and 200,000 casualties. A hydrogen fusion megaton detonation would likely produce casualties of a million or more. As I’ve said, these people will be innocent civilians, bystanders, hostages.

    Can you morally justify murdering a million hostages? And if so, explain how this makes you ethically superior to the terrorists you claim to oppose?

    In short, the whole thing simply strikes me as not really all that thought out.

  • Den Valdron:

    Thank you very much for your considered and thoughtful comment. If you go back and read what I wrote I think you’ll find that I don’t consider Saudi Arabia to be the prime target for retaliation. As Smash pointed out it’s possible to identify the source of fissibles. The source won’t be Saudi.

    The most likely candidates will be Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan in that order.

    I note that deterrence through a commitment to a massive retaliation in kind remains the policy of the United States. And I understand from your comment that you’re opposed to the policy. As the advocate for change in order to make your case you must actually propose a workable and functioning alternative. Since the objective of our deterrence policy is to prevent the use of nuclear weapons on us, that’s what your plan must do as well.

    I look forward to seeing your proposals.

  • Den Valdron Link

    >If you go back and read what I wrote I think you’ll find that I don’t consider Saudi Arabia to be the prime target for retaliation. As Smash pointed out it’s possible to identify the source of fissibles. The source won’t be Saudi. The most likely candidates will be Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan in that order.

    I disagree. Realistically speaking, the most likely sources of fissibles for a terrorist nuclear weapon would be Russia, the United States, Pakistan, India, Japan, France and China, in that order. This is based on the volume of fissibles produced, together with the quality of security arrangements for these materials. For the record, Russia far and away leads the pack for sheer volume and near nonexistent security. The United States matches Russia for volume but has better, though poor security. Pakistan and India leap to their positions due to security.

    I wouldn’t rule out Iran or North Korea, but equally at risk are fissile materials produced in commercial and experimental reactors in Turkey, South Korea, and a range of other mid-level states.

    Your notion seems to be that terrorist groups are allied with ‘rogue states.’ Not all that supportable a notion in specific, and of no value whatsoever as a general rule.

    Besides the notion that Al Quaeda or some similar non-state terrorist group needs to build or procure a nuclear weapon simply doesn’t hold up.

    The design and construction of a nuclear weapon required decades of work from cadres of scientists and technicians with access to state resources, including billions of dollars, and a wide range of raw materials and equipment. Each nuclear or near nuclear state has reached its level of threat only with massive investments.

    No terrorist group could possibly put together the resources to design and build a nuclear weapon. Arguably a sufficiently large corporation, Canal, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Sony, etc. could have the money and manpower to carry it off. But what does Ford Motors want with a nuclear weapon? Detroit already looks like a blast site.

    It would be possible for a terrorist group to obtain a ready made nuclear weapon. In that case, the biggest risk in the world is the Russian ‘loose nukes.’ The second largest risk is Pakistan’s destabilization. Both of these risk sources are mostly under control.

    For the rest of them, most states nuclear weapons are tightly bolted down. That includes the United States, China, India, France, Britain and Israel.

    In the case of Iranian and North Korean weapons, if they exist, the consensus is that these weapons are for deterrent purposes.

    Iran, as we’ll recall, is now surrounded on two sides by the United States military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, is flanked by American bases in Central Asia and the US fleet in and has four other nuclear powers (Russia, Israel, Pakistan, India) within 500 miles of its borders. It has had conflicts with almost every one of these, including the US, except for India.

    North Korea’s status is dicier, but you’ll accept that this is an isolated state in a militarized situation, with barely any international support, and which has been facing imminent nuclear annhilation ever since the cold war.

    There’s very little likelihood of North Korea or Iran voluntarily giving up weapons to non-state terrorist groups. There’s simply nothing in it for them.

    The only feasible utility would be such groups potential to deliver the payloads without missiles. So, the only possibility of the event of a non-state group acquiring, is if these ‘rogue states’ were already at war and suffering nuclear attack or imminent disintegration.

    In any case, I consider the discussion academic, because we’ve got a proven track record for non-state groups to examine.

    Hugo Drax might want to fire an ICBM at the United States, Dr. No might be building his own atom bomb, and Goldfinger might have his own orbiting space station.

    Al Quaeda and their associates are much more practical. They didn’t perform 9/11 with computer controlled missiles and high tech lasers. They used boxcutter knives.

    Their investment? $250,000. The damage inflicted? $500,000,000. That’s a hell of a bang for the buck. But consistently, this is what they do. It’s all about KISS. Keep it Simple, Stupid. Low tech, off the shelf technology, simple and straightforward, combined with coordination, dedication, planning and acute study of the enemies vulnerabilities.

    Look, its simple economics. For $250,000 Osama got a big payoff. Now, why should he go and spend ten years and five billion dollars to build a nuclear weapon (assuming he had it, which he doesn’t). Five billion dollars instead could go towards 2000 9/11 calibre operations. Assuming only 1 in ten succeed, that’s 200 major attacks. You’ll be sweeping the dust of dead Americans off your porch for ten years.

    Same with buying a nuclear weapon (though I concede its slightly more possible). Two years and 5 to 50 million dollars? There are bigger bangs for the buck elsewhere.

    Does this preclude an Al Quaeda or non-state nuclear attack? Unfortunately, it doesn’t. But understanding how these things really work assists us in predicting the shape of such an attack.

    They won’t drop a bomb on us. They’ll simply do their homework, pick a target, perhaps two or three, assemble some dedicated cadres, invest a hundred grand or so… and attack an existing American nuclear plant. If things like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl could happen by accident, what are the odds that a deliberate attack could produce an even more devastating result?

  • Den Valdron Link

    >I note that deterrence through a commitment to a massive retaliation in kind remains the policy of the United States. And I understand from your comment that you’re opposed to the policy. As the advocate for change in order to make your case you must actually propose a workable and functioning alternative. Since the objective of our deterrence policy is to prevent the use of nuclear weapons on us, that’s what your plan must do as well.

    Sorry, not playing the game. Let me make myself clear.

    Deterrence is a valid policy. But, in order for deterrence to be a valid policy, there must be rational connections between the threat and the response. The whole thing has to make sense.

    If for instance, I say to you, “If those pigeons shit in my yard one more time, I’m going to shoot your dog.” Well, that’s just not deterrence. You have no way to control the pigeons, they may not even be your pigeons.

    If I’m sufficiently irrational, I’ll point to the fact that you’ve got a bird feeder in your back yard, and I’ve noticed pigeon crap in your yard too. This tells me that you are coddling and colluding with the pigeons.

    At this point, your dog should be looking mighty nervous…

    Okay, over the top example. But the point is that deterrence has to be applied in a sensible way or it doesn’t work. You can’t just go randomly shooting up the neighbors when you get hard done by. It don’t work like that.

    Now, follow me on this: If Iran, North Korea or any other pissant state launches a nuclear attack on the United States or on American forces abroad, it risks response in kind up to and including assured destruction.

    The American nuclear fleet is such that it can incinerate any nation on Earth, in its totality. In contrast, there’s perhaps one state on Earth that can match the US bang for bang, and maybe three others that could kick our asses back so badly that we wouldn’t be walking around after the fight. All the rest of them… it’s just ‘give America a bloody nose, but forget about writing any more historybooks,’ territory.

    So, for most nuclear or potentially nuclear nations, their assured destruction is already guaranteed. At best, they’re looking for a sweetened deterrent. The thinking is that if they can hurt the US badly, then the US will think twice about opening the can of whup ass.

    Basically, growing up, I once saw a confrontation between a scared little kid, and a big bully. The bully said, “I can kill your ass.” The scared kid said, “If you try, I’m going to take out one of your eyes before I’m dead.” Deterrence.

    Sensible deterrence.

    Now, as I’ve painstakingly explained in the original post, the deterrence model isn’t working here because the targets for your deterrence are not necessarily related to or in control of the forces you which to deter.

    You want effective deterrence of that sort? You won’t get it by threatening to nuke Riyadh or Tehran.

    You could get that kind of deterrence by taking Bin Laden’s entire family hostage, wives, children, brothers, uncles aunts, nephews, nieces, etc., throwing in some of his friends and religious leaders, chopping up a few with axes just to show you’re serious, and circulating body parts all over. Maybe. That would be toxically immoral, counterproductive in many other ways, but you’d actually get reasonable deterrence.

    One final thought: If an idea is dumb, all I have to do is prove an idea is dumb. The fact that there is nothing else on the table is not a justification for going with something that is self evidently stupid.

    Now, you’ll excuse my blunt and plain language, I come from rough country and mean no offense. But my point stands.

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