PETER HUESSEY: KEEPING THE PEACE AMIDST CHAOS AND CRISES
In 2002, former top defense official Michelle Flournoy and Capitol Hill staffer and former USAF official Clark Murdock published a Center for Strategic and International Studies assessment of what further strategic nuclear weapons reductions the United States should pursue and what kind of deterrent force we should maintain to keep the peace and maintain stability.
They concluded a Triad of nuclear forces including submarines, land based missiles and bombers made the most sense, at levels of nuclear weapons from 1000-2200, the higher number then being under consideration by the Bush administration. Eventually, the United States and Russia concluded the Moscow Treaty that reduced deployed strategic nuclear weapons from 6000 to 2200 which was the single largest percent reduction of strategic nuclear weapons in history.
Under the New Start treaty of 2010 that further reduced our deployed nuclear weapons to 1550, we continued to maintain a Triad of forces including 450 Minuteman land based missiles.
However, some radical proposals continue to be put forward to eliminate the ICBM force from our nuclear deterrent largely under the assumption that the Cold War is over and there are no serious threats to the United States from any nuclear armed adversary.
While the Cold War did end in 1991 with the breakup of the Soviet Union, the totalitarian threats to America’s security remain although in changed form.
In Syria, Venezuela and Ukraine, Russian interests are fomenting civil war. Over 120,000 have now died in Syria and its chemical weapons remain. In Venezuela, the successor to Chavez is ruling by decree, imprisoning people at random, murdering its opponents and seeking weapons from Russia while making alliance with the Iranian mullahs and the despots in China. And in Ukraine, Russia bribe money and coercion are seeking to hook Kiev permanently into the Russian-only orbit as part of Moscow’s dream of re-establishing a Soviet-era like empire.
Here the connection to Russia’s nuclear arsenal becomes a concern of the United States, NATO and our other allies.
Putin has been clear that in seeking the recreation of a Moscow-centric empire, he is prepared to use military force for that purpose. Russia is the largest supplier of weaponry to Syria, Iran and Venezuela. Moscow has sent nuclear capable bombers to Caracas while helping North Korea with its ballistic missile programs which are the basis for Iran’s missile arsenal as well.
As Mark Schneider of the National Institute of Public Policy explained in 2012 testimony to the Congress, Moscow has not been shy about using the threat of nuclear weapons against the US and its allies. Russia is across the board modernizing its nuclear forces at a rate not seen even at the height of the Cold War. Whatever one may think of the intentions of Moscow today, it is a country capable of destroying the United States in 30 minutes and as such any US President has a constitutional obligation to defend this country from that threat. While we can measure the capability of Russia’s nuclear forces through satellites, we cannot usually measure a nation’s intentions until it is too late. If you cannot verify a tyrant’s motives and goals, what is the purpose of laying out a policy based largely on trust?
As crises are now worsening in Ukraine, Venezuela and Syria, the chances of miscalculation are rising. In that respect, American deployments that strengthen crisis stability become more and more important. America’s goal should be that no such crises erupt into open conflict between the great powers where the use of military force-conventional or nuclear-is a tempting option.
Almost a year ago, a group of senior military and security experts met in Minot, North Dakota to discuss this aspect-stability–of the American nuclear deterrent.
Maj General Donald Alston, (USAF-Retired) the former Commander of the 20th USAF, explained “the elimination of any leg of the triad will create disturbances in capitols around the world, leading to investments that could ultimately challenge our remaining traditional advantages.”
“Sustaining the highly visible, homeland-based, stability-sized alert postured ICBM force provides the nation a vital deterrent force. It’s essential, particularly in a crisis, that an adversary recognizes the visible, relatively invulnerable …overwhelmingly effective striking force, in order to ensure clarity in his decision-making process.”
“The New START Treaty and the NPR (Nuclear Posture review) has increased the stability value of the ICBM as we move to a single warhead configuration with 450 equally hard and valuable targets to consume the majority of the Russian deployed strategic weapons.”
The then Commander of the Global Strike Command, Lt Gen James Kowalski, now Deputy Commander of US Strategic Command, put it this way at the Minot event: “This Minuteman leg of the triad provides us strategic stability. It poses an almost insurmountable obstacle to any adversary. There are 450 hardened, dispersed launch facilities in the heartland of our nation. Within the construct of the New START agreement, no nation can attack us [and these forces] without exhausting their arsenal and leaving themselves open to retaliation. Without the Minuteman III leg of the triad, the United States could be vulnerable to nuclear coercion or extortion by a state with as few as 50 to 75 ICBMs. And I don’t think that’s a position that any future president should be placed in.”
Another former commander of the Global Strike Command, Lt Gen Frank Klotz and now scheduled to assume the helm at the NNSA or the National Nuclear Security Administration if confirmed by the Senate, echoed these views, noting “I would also submit that a triad, including widely dispersed U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles, contributes to strategic stability by presenting a potential adversary with an insurmountably complex targeting problem, thereby reducing any incentive on his part to launch a first-strike.”
“So for that reason, the triad should be retained and each leg of the triad should be replaced when it reaches the end of its service life. However, alternative approaches and configurations should be considered in future systems as a means of enhancing safety and security, reducing lifecycle costs and preserving strategic stability.”
Maj General Garrett Harencak, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration at the USAF headquarters explained why the ICBM fleet keeps the peace:
“It is the most cost-effective way to protect the United States. …Because we have ICBMs, there is no scenario in the world now that anybody could brief anybody and say it makes any sense at all to try to coerce, threaten or attack the United States of America against our only existential threat – our only existential threat.”
And at a November 2013 conference at Kings Bay, Georgia, at one of our two strategic submarine bases, Scowcroft Group principal Frank Miller, a former senior official in both the White House and the Pentagon on nuclear matters, explained: “If you eliminate the ICBM force, the problem becomes dramatically easier for the Russian planner. To succeed, you only have to destroy two SSBN bases, two bomber bases, and Washington, and then demand a ceasefire. And even a small nuclear power can figure that out. So let me put it more personally, the existence of several hundred ICBMs makes Kings Bay a less attractive target in a crisis. So keeping a strategic triad, where some elements of which are always on alert, remains vital.”
Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland , a defense and national security consulting firm.
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