The Bomb: A New History (first of three reactions)

Reading Stephen M. Younger’s The Bomb: A New History over the weekend, I had three strong reactions, the first of which I summarize below. This is an interesting and important book and my students can expect to read (at least) chapters 4 and 8 this fall.

I found the argument thin for his conclusion that a “moderate” future U.S. nuclear weapons policy would include new nuclear weapons designs and probably new military capabilities for nuclear weapons to improve the American capacity to hold deeply buried targets at risk.

My principal objection is a modified version of the standard “dangling antecedent” objection to arguments about deterrent sufficiency.

Despite leaving me desperate for references throughout the text (owing to security considerations), Dr. Younger provides an unusually clear definition of U.S. deterrent sufficiency on page 216 as a force sufficient:

“to make it impossible for Moscow to eliminate our weapons and avoid devastating retaliation following a first strike.”

While he doesn’t treat with any detail how precisely this capability instrumentalizes fear to drive desired Russian behavior, this articulation is sound if we grant familiar assumptions often packaged as “rationality.” However, I find his appropriation of the time-proven budgeting technique of rounding up and doubling the required number of nuclear weapons (for potential system failures, refurbishment process, and – a little ominously – “special weapons for unique applications”) suggestive that he does not share my perspective that each nuclear weapon in the arsenal creates a marginal security risk and complicates negotiations on both disarmament and nonproliferation (that I argue offer security benefits).

My concern about a potential disconnect between ends and means in Dr. Younger’s argument becomes more problematic as he pivots to support his actual conclusion that we need new nuclear weapon designs for flexibility and reliability.

On flexibility, he argues that the absence of additional, lower-yield weapon designs – which he associates with the work of anti-nuclear groups (huge and maybe even excessive props to a very few smart and dedicated people) – force the United States

“to continue a policy of mutual assured destruction."

I see three problems here.

First, the mutuality of assured destruction is not a matter of U.S. policy; it is a condition imposed on the United States by others (principally Russia) and can only be relieved –if at all – in cooperation with them.

Second, our efforts to relieve ourselves of excessively large-yield nuclear weapons by designing and building smaller-yield nuclear weapons may be misinterpreted. Such misinterpretations could undermine international confidence in the already stressed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime, and so, whatever we do in the service of global nuclear stability should be agreed to be in alignment with the NPT regime.

Finally, he far too easily dismisses the concern that lower-yield nuclear weapons would be destabilizing if misinterpreted by other governments as more usable, possibly lowering the perceived threshold of nuclear weapons use. On page 127 he asserts

“I believe that these arguments are seriously flawed and fail to appreciate the essential elements of strategic deterrence.”

Here the apparent necessity of offering 220 pages without a single footnote becomes a vice as I do not share his confidence in the absolute logical rigor of all the political processes that the United States hopes to frighten and/or reassure through our maintenance of a nuclear arsenal. Moreover, there is a notable disagreement about whether nuclear deterrence is absolute or delicate (expertly summarized by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis). Dr. Younger’s uniquely informed perspective on this topic would be very welcome. Without it, I remain unconvinced that additional flexibility in nuclear weapons capability is necessary for deterrent sufficiency.

On reliability, I find Dr. Younger’s argument more formidable. He argues that existing redundancy is eroding with underinvestment in U.S. nuclear weapons manufacturing capability and unavoidable drift away from the methods and materials of decades past (page 192).

His explicit openness to international inspection of a prospective future nuclear weapons replacement capability (page 219) may suggest a confidence-building step around which agreement could be built among key states. However, even the best technical ideas require political and diplomatic spadework to avoid potentially destabilizing misinterpretation. Furthermore, I am convinced that such negotiations are more likely to succeed when the United States is prepared to listen to our international partners and perhaps even adjust our plans to align with their perceived needs, when appropriate.

Dr. Younger’s thoughtful observation that

“improved transparency and inspection treaties with other countries would reduce the need to maintain nuclear forces larger than required and could conceivably enable us to eliminate them altogether”

(page 220) suggests a narrow point in the gulf between the technical and multilateral diplomatic communities focused on nonproliferation that might be bridged with the right sort of meetings and consultations. However, we are not starting from a blank slate but a position of deep suspicion and dissatisfaction among many non-nuclear weapons states parties to the NPT. I hesitate in criticizing Dr. Younger for focusing his important arguments on the future of nuclear weapons exclusively on Americans, but find I must do so remaining convinced that the bomb is everybody’s problem.

Newsweek misrepresents nuclear weapons scholarship

Jonathan Tepperman’s thesis in his September 7th Newsweek article “Why Obama should Learn to Love the Bomb” that “a growing and compelling body of research suggests that nuclear weapons may not, in fact, make the world more dangerous” badly misrepresents the state of scholarship on this crucial topic.

First, Tepperman references a handful of scholars to make his argument while dismissing the majority who disagree with him. George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn opposed this view in two op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and other leading scholars and practitioners participated in a 2007 conference at Stanford University, now memorialized as a 500-page volume, Reykjavik Revisited. Scores of experts are summarily excluded from Tepperman’s article.

Second, Tepperman suggests a robust understanding of how deterrence relates to today’s challenges where none exists. Nuclear deterrence scholar Sir Lawrence Freedman observed a “lost generation” of nuclear weapons specialists in remarks at the Elliott School of International Affairs this spring and Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, General Kevin Chilton, observed this summer “we have allowed an entire generation to skip class, as it were, on the subject of strategic deterrence.” More scholarship is needed to translate “nuclear optimism” and other Cold War concepts into the Twenty-first Century.

Third, in over 2,700 words on deterrence, not one of them is “accident.” This is a catastrophic flaw in characterizing scholarly debate on nuclear weapons. Kenneth Waltz, cited by Tepperman as “the leading nuclear optimist” underlines this point by co-authoring a book titled The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed with Stanford University’s Scott Sagan who has done decades of careful scholarship to demonstrate the relevance of accidents to nuclear deterrence.

Tepperman’s “iron logic” of deterrence is undermined by a more unstable plutonium logic that can only be understood by the combined lights of physics, engineering, political science, economics, and at least more than a dozen other disciplines that James Doyle of Los Alamos National Laboratory argues constitute “nuclear security science.” The nuclear future ahead of us is long, imperfect, and badly in need of more research and more informed public debate.

Nuclear Umbrella: Pick 40

Defense News recently ran an editorial arguing that the United States should build new nuclear weapons or run the risk of losing the skills necessary to build these weapons, and:

“That's simply unacceptable for a nation whose nuclear protective umbrella covers some 40 nations.”

The number 40 captured my imagination. I thought immediately of the 28 members of NATO. Then it occurred to me that this includes the United States itself, which is a provider of the extended deterrent usually referred to as the “nuclear umbrella” and thus might not be counted toward the 40. And, of course, the United Kingdom and France have their own independent nuclear deterrents, so 25 in NATO properly under the U.S. “nuclear umbrella.” But then I decided that coming to agreement about this will require a more cooperative spirit, so 28.

Japan is an oft-cited (if increasingly complex) case, and South Korea leaps to mind, but I started running out of steam in my effort to count to 40.

Then it occurred to me I might have the whole thing the wrong way round. I began again: 192 members of the United Nations, now subtracting:

• 33 members of the Latin American Nuclear Weapon Free Zone,
• 13 parties to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone,
• 10 parties to the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone,
• 53 signatories to the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, and
• 5 parties to the Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone
  And, of course,
• 28 NATO members previously mentioned

This should leave 50 UN members not in NATO or an explicit nuclear weapon free zone agreement, right?

Of course, the devil is in the details, with Taiwan probably relevant and Niue party to Pelindaba and Brunei party to Bangkok all without seats in Turtle Bay – but building on the collaborative spirit referenced above, let’s say this is all part of a round 30, leaving 10 states to be named later under the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” from among (more or less) the follwing 53: Afghanistan, Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bhutan, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Finland, Georgia, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Qatar, Moldova, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Plus, the Holy See.

This list certainly includes some of my favorites, but the point is that the who the United States has pledged to defend is potentially important at a moment when our negative security assurances (not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) will again be discussed critically at the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The stakes may not seem what they once were in extending our deterrent largesse in this way, but exactly which states we have pledged to defend with nuclear weapons under what conditions remains a worthy topic of public debate because it has implications for the effectiveness of our nonproliferation policy.

Post-event attribution of nuclear explosions

On April 22, 2009, the Program on Nonproliferation Policy and Law hosted a workshop on the "attribution" of nuclear explosions after the fact -- referring to efforts to identify the source of the nuclear explosive design and/or material used to create a nuclear explosion -- after the fact. This important event brought diverse perspectives to bear on this important question.

Dear friend and mentor of the Nukes on a Blog team, Professor Anthony Clark Arend, posts video from this important event here: http://anthonyclarkarend.com/humanrights/video-what-happens-after-a-nuclear-event/

The Program on Nonproliferation Policy and Law is a collaborative effort of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and the Institute of International Law and Politics at Georgetown University supported by the Advanced Systems and Concepts Office of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.