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By Captain James R. Lynch, U. S. Navy
In this age of international budget pressures, arms-limiting negotiations, and low-intensity conflicts, is the strategic triad not an overkill? A combination of SLBMs and bombers could provide an adequate deterrent force.
Since the inception of the nuclear deterrent force, a religious-like aura has surrounded the strategic triad. Serious arguments for change have been dismissed because of the desire to maintain this trinity indefinitely. I believe, though, that two forces are currently converging that will result in fundamental changes to our strategic deterrent posture—budget pressure and arms control (the views are those of the author, as opposed to those of the Department of Defense or the United States Navy). These forces could break the sanctity of the triad.
It has been suggested that the single integrated operational plan (SIOP) is a “capabilities plan, aimed at using all available forces to achieve maximum destruction,” as opposed to a plan for use of forces necessary to achieve our national aims.1 The development of the SIOP over the years has been covert, but a clear trend in its evolution is evident.
The fundamental philosophy of targeting has changed. In the post-World War II days of the Strategic' Air Command, the number of available warheads was small, the accuracy of systems was poor, and the capacity for detailed surveillance was almost nonexistent. Nuclear deterrence in the LeMay era was based on countervalue targeting with high-yield weapons. Since those early days of nuclear deterrence, the number of warheads has dramatically increased. Great strides have been made in accuracy of delivery systems, and warhead size has been reduced. Surveillance has enormously improved because of the advances in space technology. With all these technological changes, our philosophy of target selection has changed.
Earliest nuclear national guidance was based on a belief that the threat of destruction of population centers and the military-industrial complex was a deterrent. Because of ethical concerns about threatening a civilian population, a shift evolved that required counterforce targeting instead of countervalue targeting. Thus, targets became the opponent’s silos, military bases, industry, and leadership centers.2 The lists grew rapidly, and we now require thousands of warheads to accomplish the deterrence mission. It must be noted here that the moralist who argues that this counterforce strategy is ethically preferable to a strategy that directly threatens the population may not be considering the overall effect of the warheads proposed in modern plans.3 There are other technical issues under debate. Some state that target planners, to simplify their complex task, consider only the blast effect of weapon detonation in destruction calculations.4 This simplification would discount the enormous effects of fire, radiation, and fallout. Is it possible these forces might be as much or even more of a deterrent than the effects of blast on the intended targets? Under present philosophy and guidance, in order to deter Soviet attack, we require thousands of deliverable warheads.
While the placement of many weapons on a single delivery vehicle (on bombers, or multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles [MIRVs] on ballistic missiles) in- traduced efficiencies, in the early days the number and types of delivery systems grew by leaps and bounds. In recent years, though, there has been a decrease in weapons and weapon systems fielded. This decline will likely be accelerated by the press of fiscal constraints and negotiated limitations.
The starting point for development of a force structure must be the national guidance. In his fiscal year 1989 annual report to Congress, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney describes the first national security objective: “To safeguard the United States, its allies and interests by deterring aggression and coercion; and should deterrence fail, by defeating the armed aggression and ending the conflict on terms favorable to the United States, its allies and interests at the lowest possible level of hostilities.” The Secretary then points to deterrence by forces that can respond in three ways:
- Direct defense—Deterrence through the denial of aims by force
- Threat of escalation—Deterrence through the promise of cost in excess of gain
- Threat of retaliation—Deterrence through the threat of punishment
To achieve these capabilities, the deterrent force requires certain characteristics: survivability, promptness, endurance, mission flexibility, and destructive capacity (a combination of system accuracy and warhead yield). In our force development, even in the face of reductions by negotiation or fiscal constraints, these basic characteristics must be preserved.
The Trident D-5 missile will soon be at sea on patrol. To many, this is just the next in a progression of numbered missiles that started with A-l. In fact, the appearance of this new missile, along with other Trident system improvements, makes significant and substantial changes to the nuclear options available to the President. To appreciate the differences, we should review the Trident and the D-5 capabilities in light of the requirements of defense guidance:
- Survivability—Greatly improved through reduced observables and thus reduced detectability. Greater capability in self-defense has resulted from platform improvements. The long range of Trident missiles permits operations in vast ocean areas. Additionally, our strengthened general-purpose forces, operating forward in consonance with the maritime strategy, play an important role by holding back Soviet air and surface antisubmarine warfare (ASW) forces, as well as presenting a formidable threat to Soviet nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs). In our operating areas, the major ocean basins, our ASW forces can as a result operate at will in opposition to the Soviet SSN.
- Prompt response—Improved communications stem from new and more robust national and theater airborne command posts and upgraded processing equipment. Using the existing surface fleet capability to retransmit emergency action messages (a sea-based MF/HF ground wave emergency network of sorts) could enhance the capacity for prompt response. The long range and increased capability of Trident missiles allows nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) to operate at a great distance from Soviet jamming sites and inside the assured reception footprint of U. S. airborne emergency action message transmitters. As a result of all of this, the submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) can now deliver a prompt response, a capability previously the sole domain of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
- Endurance—Always the most enduring of the triad, the SSBN force continues to make improvements. Options for replenishment at sea or in alternate ports have been tested. System reliability in the Trident platform is substantially improved over previous classes. Trident is ready to operate with a high alert rate, providing deterrence even through the course of a long conventional conflict. Departures from present operating procedures that might be needed in future scenarios and that could require higher alert rates might include alert operations in port.
- Mission flexibility—Here the Trident D-5 system will provide as much flexibility as any ballistic missile system. In future situations, where arms reduction agreements might significantly reduce warhead counts, the Trident could provide a secure launch system for strategic defense initiative purposes, reconstitutable satellites for surveillance or command and control, or provide a launch platform for conventionally armed ballistic or cruise missiles.
- Destructive capacity—The D-5 system yield and accuracy converts this SLBM for the first time into a hard- target killer, capable of silo attack.
In short, when the Trident D-5 goes on patrol, a new era in sea-based deterrence will begin.
There are few remaining supporters of silo-based MIRVed ICBMs; they are too vulnerable to preemptive strike. In a negotiated small-number-of-warheads environment, their high vulnerability would be unacceptable. The departure of the silo-based missile from the strategic scene is a reasonable expectation, and is likely to occur within the next 10 to 15 years.
ICBM options are the rail-mobile Peacekeeper and the Midgetman, or a small, truck-mounted mobile single warhead missile. The rail-mobile Peacekeeper has advantages over the silo-based version, but its survivability in a surprise attack is as low as that of silo-based systems. One must also question its survivability in the long haul of a protracted conventional conflict. It is a prime target for sabotage or conventional attack while in garrison, and when forced out of garrison, it could become too lucrative a target for the Spetznaz to pass up. While in transit, the Peacekeeper will rely on radio connectivity, giving up one of the ICBM’s cornerstones of reliability, the land-line for communications. The rail-Peacekeeper system alert rate (and concomitant ability to cover targets requiring prompt response) suffers considerable degradation compared with the silo-based variant. While on the move, the rail-mobile Peacekeeper is not alert, as are the silo-based ICBMs.
Another strong argument against the Peacekeeper is based on environmental and public safety concerns. Public acceptance of intercontinental nuclear missiles traveling through cities on national railroads is doubtful.
Finally, one must wonder if the order to move out of garrison would be considered so escalatory that it might
never be given. There appears to be little advantage to the rail-mobile Peacekeeper when compared with SLBMs. Survivability remains the rail-mobile Peacekeeper’s weakest attribute. In a post-strategic arms reduction talks (START) environment of fewer weapons available for deterrence, survivability gains in importance.
Midgetman, particularly using the Southwest basing scheme, has many favorable characteristics. Unfortunately, the cost appears to be so high that the Midgetman program has attracted many opponents. The recent presidential decision to continue funding for research and development of the Midgetman increases the likelihood of (but certainly does not guarantee) its eventual deployment. A small Midgetman land-based leg of the triad could provide characteristics of sovereign basing, the ability to attack single-weapon and small option targets,5 and to have relatively good survivability, at least until the Soviets solve the problem of targeting mobile platforms. The high cost of the Midgetman, though, may prevent its deployment.
Agreement of the need to pare defense budgets is spreading, even among conservatives. There is also pressure to improve our capability to be successful in low- intensity conflict. A buildup of conventional capability will likely be at the expense of strategic systems—not in addition to triad modernization.
Because of this pressure to cut funding—to reduce force levels that carry with them high maintenance and operating costs—it is necessary to review fundamental questions such as what really deters attack and how much is enough when threatening retaliation. To address these issues, a damage estimation computer program might be developed. In a postulated nuclear exchange, one might include the hard-to-calculate effects. Possibly, even fewer warheads than proposed in the present START negotiations would suffice to deter. But should deterrence fail, there would be enough warheads to punish sufficiently.
In any event, the funding to procure all the available options for our nuclear deterrent force is simply not there, and choices will have to be made.
The pressure of arms control will have a similar effect in molding the future strategic deterrent force. Paradoxically, because of the high cost of verification, reduced force levels resulting from negotiations may well be more expensive than maintaining unconstrained higher numbers of weapons.
Arms control will be driven by political motivations and attempts by both sides to “capture” capabilities held by the other for which no counter exists or is affordable. In this sense, arms control is the converse of competitive strategies. The pressures for negotiated cuts in strategic arms are strong, politically popular, and can be expected to sway the thinking of elected officials. The Soviets will probably continue trying to force arms limitations because of their own severe budget pressure.
Over the course of the next several decades, several iterations of START agreements may be concluded, as the world ratchets down to baseline levels of strategic nuclear weapons that satisfy the requirements for a minimum deterrent force.
In the face of pressure to reduce strategic forces, one must carefully consider all alternatives. The easiest approach, and the fairest from a bureaucrat’s point of view, would be to reduce all forces by the same percentage. Here one could debate the parameter for percentage reduction (launchers, warheads, megatonnage), but the simplicity of this approach would have great appeal to the bureau-
With its long range, prompt response, and flexibility, the D-5 and its associated Trident system could enable the SLBMs to replace the ICBMs. Scheduled to become active early this year, the missile is expected to bring in a new range of deterrence capabilities for the United States.
crat, even though strategically the outcome might be unsound.
Perhaps it is time to take a new approach; to do the unthinkable and challenge the concept of a triad. We could create the strategic deterrent force through the following steps:
- Select from available forces those that best conform to the characteristics of survivability, promptness, endurance, flexibility, and destructive capacity.
- Balance the force in terms of these essential characteristics instead of simply distributing warheads among the legs of a triad. Understand that numerical balance does not necessarily result in a proper balance of characteristics.
- Hedge against the unexpected by selecting force components to minimize common failure modes, which requires a careful analysis of failure modes. Realize in the process that insurance against every conceivable scenario may not be affordable.
- Set force levels that provide survivable warhead counts with sufficiency to deter. A top-down review of targeting philosophy would be a prerequisite.
- Select forces that allow room for growth.
- Choose those forces that, in addition to being proper for SIOP execution, have potential for roles in discriminate deterrence, and perhaps even conventional missions.
It seems possible that a future force mix of SLBMs and bombers could fulfill the requirements. The operational improvements brought by the D-5 missile, with its associated Trident system, would allow the SLBM force to fulfill enough of the roles and missions of an ICBM force,
mobile or fixed, to make the marginal worth of the ICBM force very small. In making the transition to such a force, ICBMs could be phased out in conjunction with arms control agreements. In the absence of additional treaties, phaseout would occur as the missiles became obsolete.
The move to a strategic dyad, sized to fit a baseline deterrence requirement and living inside the bounds of budget and negotiated limitations, would have minimal impact on general-purpose naval forces. The increased play by the Navy in the strategic arena might require some
headquarters restructuring, but operations of forces at sea would be little changed.
Air Force impact would be substantial as ICBM forces were phased out. Manned bomber forces would be modernized for both strategic and conventional missions. This modernization would be very expensive, but perhaps affordable for the Air Force if expensive manned bomber improvements were not in competition with an also expensive ICBM modernization program.
Conclusions
- Public pressure will push politicians to arms reduction agreements. This is a popular issue.
- Fiscal pressure, amplified by the high cost of arms- control verification, will further reduce the budget slice available for strategic forces.
- Requirements for low-intensity conflict forces will mandate that manned bomber systems be maintained. Some of these systems will continue to be dual-capable (conventional and nuclear).
- A rethinking of what is really needed to deter may allow further reductions to a minimum sufficient deterrent force.
- The rail-mobile Peacekeeper has a critical flaw—it fails just when needed the most, in the “bolt from the blue/ gray” surprise attack scenario.
- The proposed mobile Midgetman, now under development, has many good characteristics, including that of survivability, but it is a very expensive system.
- Improvements in the SLBM will allow it to perform the missions previously reserved for ICBMs. In particular, prompt, hard-target kill missions are included.
► Ultimately, a strategic dyad of SLBMs and manned bombers may prove to be affordable, acceptable to our allies, and sufficient to deter our opponents. An acceptable intermediate step while moving toward the dyad may be a strategic force with dominant SLBM and bomber legs, plus a small number, perhaps a few hundred, of survivable, single-warhead Midgetmen.
We are witnessing today the convergence of strong budget pressure on the governments of both superpowers and a demonstrated willingness of these governments to negotiate and to execute provisions of nuclear arms limiting agreements. This is a new development in global politics. With these developments rapidly evolving, a move toward a strategic dyad could be appropriate and timely.
'"The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy 1945-1960,” David Rosenberg, International Security, Volume 7, Number 4, Spring 1983. 2A perhaps unintended consequence of abandoning countervalue targeting and adopting the counterforce targeting philosophy was that an essentially unbounded target set was created. This opened the door to an era of nuclear force building. 3"Civilian Casualties from Counterforce Attacks”, von Hippie, Levi, Postol, and Daugherty, Scientific American, Volume 259, Number 3, September 1988. 4“The Consequences of ‘Limited’ Nuclear Attacks on the United States”, Daugherty, Levi, and von Hippie, International Security, Volume 10, Number 4, Spring 1986.
5An alternative solution to the single-weapon and small option problem is, of course, the sea-launched or air-launched cruise missile with a nuclear warhead.
Captain Lynch is Deputy Director of the Strategic Policy Analysis Group at the Center for Naval Analysis, Alexandria, Virginia.
----------------------------------------------------------------- ‘Keeping Skills Honed’_______________________________
There’s a story about former Navy Secretary John Warner that appeared in a D.C. journal a few years ago:
It seems that when Warner was Secretary of the Navy, he decided to sail on board a historic Chesapeake Bay skipjack. The weatherbeaten old skipper looked him over and said, “I understand you do something in Washington.”
“That’s right,” Warner told him. “I’m Secretary of the Navy.”
“Well, in that case,” came the response, “you steer.”
Harold Heifer
______________________________________________ ‘A Religious Relic’_________________________________
When the Venerable Noel D. Jones, QHC, BA, Chaplain of the Fleet and Archdeacon to the British Royal Navy, was introduced as the morning preacher at David Adams Memorial Chapel (Naval Station, Norfolk), no doubt the congregants wondered just how stuffy this formidable (both in stature and in position) Anglican priest might be. Chaplain Jones began his sermon, “When I was selected as Chaplain of the Fleet and assumed this title ‘Venerable,’ my young daughter came to me and said, ‘Just what does venerable mean?’ Being the good father, I told her to look it up. She came back a little later with the answer, ‘commanding respect or interest because of great age ... a relic.’ ” From that point on, the morning’s worshippers knew this was a man of good humor; he was approachable and humble. They were not disappointed.
Commander Michael D. Halley, U. S. Navy