Robert Salas
June 15, 2021
Robert Salas was born in Chandler, Arizona. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1960 to 1971 and received an honorable discharge. Salas earned a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Air Force Academy and graduate degrees from the Air Force Institute of Technology and the University of Washington. His career experience includes working as an engineer, government advisor, and educator.
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Tomorrow, President Joe Biden and autocrat Vladimir Putin will meet. Each of these two people have the power to order the use of nuclear weapons. After this meeting, each will probably make a comment that the U.S. and Russian Federation have extended the New Start Treaty, limiting nuclear arms. It is highly unlikely either will say there is agreement to work toward the abolishment of nuclear weapons or speak to the current threat of nuclear war. Here is what I and I hope the rest of the world would say about that
THE CURRENT THREAT OF NUCLEAR WAR ON EARTH
On February 4, 2021 the U.S. renewed the “New Start” Treaty with the Russian Federation. The treaty calls for a cap of 1550 deployed nuclear bombs for each side. It is not a new start in a quest for the elimination of nuclear weapons in our world. It is simply a continuation of the idea that we ought to limit the number of nuclear weapons each nation can have deployed, in case we want to execute our mutually assured destruction. It does not limit the total stockpile of nuclear weapons each nation may have. It does not limit the spending, research and upgrading of nuclear weapons delivery systems. It does not speak to the strategic planning or posture of the two nations as to how these weapons of mass annihilation would or could be used in future conflicts.
Let us do a simple calculation that could result from a nuclear holocaust scenario after the use of 3000 nuclear bombs. Publicly available information tells us that each nuclear bomb would have a minimum destructive yield of 300 kilotons (kt) of TNT equivalence and the range of current weapons yield as high as 800 kt. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan at the end of WWII had a yield of 20 kt, destroyed that city of 300,000 and killed over 100,000 people from the initial blast. Our current nuclear bombs have the destructive power fifteen times greater at a minimum. It could reasonably be expected that over a million people would die from the detonation of any one of those bombs. If 3000 nuclear bombs reached their targets, then over 3 billion people, worldwide would die from the initial bombings. Of course, that number would become much greater due to the radioactive fallout that would follow. In addition, this minimal calculus does not account for any additional nuclear weapons that would be deployed leading up to such a scenario.
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The most recent Nuclear Posture Reviews by both Russia and the U.S. state that nuclear deterrence through the maintenance and upgrade of nuclear forces is paramount. Here is the statement from the 2020 U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) report by commander Gen. Charles Richard: “To be clear, nuclear deterrence is the highest priority mission of the Department of Defense – our deterrent underwrites every U.S. military operation around the world and is the foundation and backstop of our national defense. The ability of the United States to deter threats to our Nation and our Allies is at a critical point. The contemporary security environment is the most challenging since the Cold War. In the nuclear dimension, we face a range of potential adversaries, each with different interests, objectives, and capabilities. To maintain a credible deterrent in this environment requires us to modernize and recapitalize our strategic forces to ensure our Nation has the capability to deter any actor, at any level.”
In June 2020, Russian President Putin approved an equally definitive statement in their document Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence: “The Russian Federation considers nuclear weapons exclusively as a means of deterrence.” However, this document allows for use of nuclear weapons if there is aggression against the Russian Federation even if conventional weapons are used. In addition, Russian officials have made statements that their real doctrine goes beyond basic deterrence and toward regional war-fighting strategies.
Both the U.S. and Russia have committed to further modernization and development of “low-yield” tactical nuclear weapons for use in regional conflicts. This begs the question: If these tactical nuclear weapons were used in any conflict, would that be considered a First Strike of nuclear weaponry and thereby giving an opponent the rational to retaliate in kind? How long would it be before the conflict would escalate to the use of larger yield nukes?
NUCLEAR DETERRENCE POLICYA de-classified memorandum (ref. National Security Council (NSC-68) [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/NSC-68] in 1950 outlined the inception of the U.S. policy of nuclear deterrence. It states: “For the moment our atomic retaliatory capability is probably adequate to deter the Kremlin from a deliberate direct military attack against ourselves or other free peoples. However, when it calculates that it has a sufficient atomic capability to make a surprise attack on us, nullifying our atomic superiority and creating a military situation decisively in its favor, the Kremlin might be tempted to strike swiftly and with stealth. The existence of two large atomic capabilities in such a relationship might well act, therefore, not as a deterrent, but as an incitement to war.” Clearly, even in 1950, the concept of deterrence was not intended to be a long-term solution to the threat of global nuclear war. At that time, the only posture that seemed logical was to maintain nuclear weapons superiority or equivalence with the USSR in order to ‘assure the effectiveness of any U.S. retaliatory blow’. This posture would initiate the nuclear arms race. The result, as history has shown, would be the rapid growth of production and stockpile of nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them. By this time, most analysts understood that a nuclear war was not winable nor survivable. That logic of deterrence that began the nuclear arms race was critically flawed. It would create a world existing on the razor’s edge of doomsday. Further, our arms race with the USSR would eventually lead to the desire of other nations to possess nukes in search of their own security and ambitions, creating even greater risk of nuclear war.
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By 1958, during the Eisenhower administration, the concept of nuclear deterrence had been established. It was defined in a memo from National Security Advisor Robert Cutler to Secretary of State Foster Dulles. In his summary of conclusions, with respect to nuclear weapons, he stated:
“All-out war is obsolete as an instrument for the attainment of national objectives. The purpose of a capability for all-out war is to deter its use by an enemy, but once a stalemate of such capabilities has been achieved, to perpetuate it at minimum loss of other capabilities.
• Strategic strength is not usable strength for stable deterrence of, or reply to, minor aggression.
• The U.S. should determine, establish, and maintain the minimum invulnerable strategic forces adequate to deter initiation of all-out war by a rational opponent.
”Nuclear deterrence is based on the assumption that nuclear armed opponents would conclude ‘rationally’ that a nuclear war is unthinkable and highly improbable because no one in a position of political or military power would ever seriously consider using nuclear weapons. That assumption has been shown to be grossly erroneous as demonstrated by historical facts. General Douglas McArthur proposed using nukes against China during the Korean War; In September 1954, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended using atomic bombs on China over the conflict between Taiwan and China over the islands of Quemoy and Matsu; JFK was prepared and ready to retaliate against the USSR with nuclear forces during the Cuban missile crisis when we reached the Defcon 2 stage (war is imminent) , Lyndon Johnson received multiple requests from General Westmoreland to consider the nuclear option against North Vietnam. Richard Nixon twice considered the nuclear option. In 1969, a member of the President’s National Security Council (NSC) reported that he had been shown plans that targeted at least two sites in North Vietnam for nuclear air bursts. In 1972, the nuclear option was again considered by Nixon. President George H. W. Bush had to deal with the reality that both Pakistan and India had nuclear weapons and that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. U.S. commitment to the Persian Gulf War was, in part motivated by the threat of Iraq’s nuclear program. THE COST OF
NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
The United States plans to spend more than $500 billion in the next decade and $1.5 trillion over the next several decades to sustain and upgrade its nuclear delivery systems, associated warheads, and supporting infrastructure. A recent change in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act effectively makes the Nuclear Weapons Council of the Pentagon the decision authority for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget. As a result, the energy secretary and the Office of Management and Budget will have reduced leverage in the development of the budget. It will also make it difficult for the president to overrule the council without getting into a messy public spat with congressional nuclear hawks about why they are going against the advice of the Pentagon. Effectively, today the U.S. military has wrested control away from civilian authority over the development and potential use nuclear weapons. This could certainly be the case in other countries.
THE FATAL FLAWS OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
Nuclear Deterrence is the concept of having a preponderance of nuclear weapons available to deliver to enemy targets on short notice of an impending attack by any nation. Establishing that risk of annihilation, no opposing nation would risk their total destruction from full-scale nuclear war. A brief review of military history shows that nations claiming to have superiority in armaments as a deterrent to war has never worked. It may prolong peace for a while but the temptation to achieve a political end through military means has been a constant by aggressor nations in our history. I consider the following as fatal flaws in the concept of ‘nuclear deterrence.’
• It is grossly irresponsible to have such massively destructive power in our military arsenals since it would allow military leaders to consider their potential use in war as has been shown previously.
• It has not deterred other nations from acquiring their own nuclear deterrence force and thereby expanding the nuclear arms race. This has created a greater risk of their use in regional conflicts.
• Reliance on deterrence does not encourage nations of the world toward the objective of the abolition of nuclear weapons. Treaties reducing the number of nuclear weapons have not lowered the threshold of nuclear stockpiles below the number that could result in the total destruction of our civilization
.• As a result of nuclear nations maintaining their arsenals, the threat of nuclear war has continued to create fear and instability among those nations. This has resulted in the costly commitments for more and diverse delivery vehicles, weapons modernization and defining national security around nuclear weaponry.
• The greater number of nuclear nations increases the risk of accidents, theft or misinterpretation of the intentions of other nuclear nations creating scenarios for first use.
• For nuclear nations, there is no peaceful alternative to deterrence. If the concept of deterrence is seen as a failed one, due to an instance where a device is used in a conflict, for example, there is no fail-safe position. Retaliation, escalation and nuclear warfare would follow.
CONCLUSION
We have no good answer to the questions: “How would we explain the global arms race to a dispassionate extraterrestrial observer? “Would we argue that ten thousand targeted nuclear warheads are likely to enhance the prospects for our survival?” Carl Sagan, COSMOS