U.S. Nuclear Force Structure
| Working Paper
The New START treaty calls for limitations in nuclear weapons but leaves the Cold War force structure alrge intact. For truly deep cuts it is necessary to understand and reimagine the strucutre of both sides nuclear weapons' posture.
Abstract
The United States and Russia have made major reductions in their long-range nuclear forces since the end of the Cold War. These reductions should be welcome, but are less than one might expect and hope for, given that the Cold War is over. The recent New START treaty calls for a modest additional reduction for the nuclear superpowers, but leaves the two arsenals with essentially the same Cold War structure on a smaller scale. Truly significant further reductions in numbers and nuclear dangers will require a new attitude toward the role of nuclear weapons.
In his paper, Ivan Oelrich focuses on three aspects of U.S. strategic forces: first their current status, then the doctrine and policy that guide their potential use, plans for the next generation of weapons, and finally, some recommendations about what is required to move toward deep reductions in nuclear forces.
Policy recommendations
The way forward toward deep reductions requires the U.S. and Russia to coordinate in eliminating the vulnerability of their forces. Reducing vulnerability is a problem with two sides that must be coordinated: offensive capability must be reduced and, at the same time, both sides must make their forces harder to attack.
Russia and the U.S. will have different solutions to basing nuclear weapons. The U.S. has the option of putting missiles on submarines that Russia cannot find and destroy. There are some reports that the latest Russian submarines are far quieter than their noisy Cold War models, but, even if true, Russia cannot afford to put its entire missile fleet on submarines. Despite such asymmetries, the U.S. and Russia could work together creatively on new basing modes. For example, Russia seems to like land-mobile missiles, but these are survivable only if dispersed from garrison.
And that requires warning time. U.S. land-based missiles could be stored in deep tunnels, immune to attack. Deep basing options have been rejected in the past precisely because they made rapid launch impossible, but that is an asset if the U.S. wants to convince Russia it is incapable of a rapid first strike against, for example, Russian mobile land-based missiles. Russian monitors, human or robotic, could continually confirm that U.S. missiles were not being readied for launch.
Other options are possible, for example, restricting long-range nuclear delivery to slow-flying air-breathing vehicles, perhaps along with monitoring of the launch areas. These could be manned bombers or invulnerable intercontinental-range cruise missiles. Once prompt launch and strike are abandoned as requirements, many possibilities open up. (If the U.S. wants to retain prompt launch against some smaller countries, such as North Korea, then a dozen weapons would suffice and be irrelevant to Russia.) With the counterforce mission technically impossible, further major reductions in force would come naturally. In general, the U.S. has to shed nuclear missions before it can shed more nuclear weapons.