The Nuclear Priesthood is Having a Moment

there is stirring in the Temple of Syrinx, it seems

“The difference, of course, between the debate over the nature of thermonuclear war and previous such debates is that it remains hypothetical. And unless we want to bet everything on the optimist, that is what it will always be. For if we lost this bet, and the pessimist turned out to be right, a thermonuclear war will have destroyed the human race, and along with it things like discourse and memory. The debate would remain forever unresolved, because those pessimists proven right, along with those optimists proven wrong, would all be dead.”

—Campbell Craig, Destroying the Village

The Israeli-American attack on the Iranian has for now at least, brought the topic of the theory and practice of nuclear deterrence and its crazy sister nuclear war to the front of the discussion space. Two of my must-listen podcasts, Geopolitics Decanted and Net Assessment, have both discussed it this July. After a still ongoing exchange with Bob Peters that started on the Sabbath, I decided I should pick up the topic here for the Front Porch to bat about.

For full disclosure, I’ve never been very satisfied with the sermons from the high priests of nuclear theory. My feelings that something was a bit “off” about how we think about nuclear weapons date back to when I was a Midshipman and the Soviet Union had SSBN patrolling their “Yankee Boxes” in the mid-Atlantic, giving the East Coast of the USA about 10-15-min max to try to find the nearest bomb shelter or confessional.

A TIME FOR HERESY

With something as existentially important as nuclear weapons, it is only natural that there would be an entire industry of specialists, theorists, and practitioners on the topic. However, there is an uncomfortable arrogance around their untested confidence in their archaic and ravenously expensive concept about the use and utility of nuclear weapons.

The high priests in the Nuclear Specialist Guild will brag about “80 years of wargaming and theory” by The Smartest People in the Room™ as if that proves the validity of this, that, or the other idea or scenario to the point that they believe they believe they are entitled to dismiss arguments to the contrary.

Bollocks.

I’m sorry, no. Nuclear deterrence and war theory are frozen in Aspic from a time that the K Car was going to save Chrysler, and are ripe for a baseline review..

The existential importance of getting as close to “right” as possible demands it.

No. No one has "proof" that their pet theory is correct or not—including mine. It is all about opportunity cost, the robustness of your planning assumptions, and where you are willing to accept risk.

No one has dropped a nuclear weapon at war in 80 years. As such, this is all theory. My theory of the case is that there is no such thing as “limited nuclear war” between large nuclear powers, or “tactical nuclear weapons.”

If I am wrong, then we only have a "limited" nuclear exchange followed by a walk-back and negotiation. If the Neo-McNamarians are wrong in their belief that you can micro-manage your way through a limited nuclear exchange with a major nuclear power, then congrats...you've tripped yourself into a full nuclear exchange that will result in Argentina, New Zealand, and Australia being the major powers on our small planet.

Are there certain vignettes that might, might, allow a major nuclear power to have a limited exchange of low yield weapons with small to medium nuclear powers? Sure, I can play that out—though regardless of salesmanship at the Decision Brief, I’m not sure that another U.S. President wants to be known as, “The second U.S. President who conducted a nuclear first strike.”

That marker down, you can go ahead and add that to your list of Planning Assumptions:

Due mainly to the uncertainty with imperfect intelligence and lack of historical reference points, regardless of public statements to the contrary, no U.S. President will authorize first use of nuclear weapons.

In the narrowest of circumstances where something like this needs to be done, it could be handled by nuclear forces designed for peer deterrence either with our existing posture, or the one I offer at the end of the post.

Especially at sea, expending time, money, and effort to deploy and maintain a high-overhead, low-probability-of-use weapon system across deployable units is myopic fiscal and strategic foolishness. As a junior officer I saw that up close and personal. No, thank you.

THE INERRANCY OF ERROR

It would be helpful if those in the nuclear planning industry recognized how horribly we’ve predicted conventional wars since WWII. We got Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and even Somalia wrong.

With something like nuclear war, are we really confident that the strange people behind the SCIF door will do better? Pulling the "my strategic analysis is unassailable" card by many of the same people who were so wrong on the conventional side is almost as weak as saying, "We have war gamed..." as if that proves anything. That is not what war games are for. We all know that if you tell me what outcome you want, we can design/execute a war game to give you that result. War games are best seen as testing mechanism, not proving mechanisms.

KNOW YOUR LEXICON

Let’s hit the wave tops of the theory of nuclear war. I find it useful to look at the larger picture as opposed to arguing esoteric and isolated vignettes. Along those lines, there are two major schools of how to conduct nuclear war, counterforce and countervalue.

Let’s define our terms, if we can. Not sharing the same definition is where many problems start.

It appears that we have been arguing theory and dogma so long without a war to validate any of them, that we have developed a whole constellation of different schools of thought, each with slightly different definitions of the same word. For those looking for a clean and precise definition of terms and concepts, in 2025 you are unlikely to find them.

If something so foundational cannot be agreed on, that should give everyone pause in assuming with certitude anything built on top of it.

You would think that with this lack of agreement even on terms, responsible players would move towards more flexibility and caution in their assumptions instead of doubling down on their exquisitely assured policy recommendations.

You’d think.

To explain what I mean by the unstable foundation, what better source would there be than the barely two months old, Counterforce in Contemporary U.S. Nuclear Strategy, edited by Brad Roberts from the Center for Global Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory?

Definitions matter. The new strategic challenge of deterring two peer competitors has revived debates about the benefits and shortcomings of a “counterforce” targeting strategy. That debate reveals the fact that different people have different definitions of the term itself. Thus, their arguments and counterarguments tend not to connect. One result is a general confusion. Another is uncertainty: does “counterforce” actually refer to targets of value to political leaders, nuclear forces including command and control, or military and war-supporting industry? This definitional confusion is particularly important as the United States develops a strategy for deterring two peer competitors, and considerations of counterforce targeting will have implications for deterrence and arms control policies.

…

In a 2009 essay, for example, Thomas Schelling acknowledged, “We never had an agreed understanding of ‘flexible response’ or ‘nocities’ and its relation to counterforce targeting.” As Acton notes, a counterforce targeting would not necessarily avoid cities. In an attempt to reconcile this false binary, Keir Lieber and Daryl Press advocate for a hybrid of counterforce and countervalue leaving the United States with its current counterforce capabilities to provide credible retaliatory options across a wide range of circumstances (e.g., an adversary’s limited nuclear attack), all the while avoiding the need to build additional counterforce capabilities each time China or Russia enhances its nuclear arsenal.

There is an active interplay between the two theories ongoing for decades, but in recent times there are more discussions about how newer capabilities are changing things.

One paper in the last half-decade I have significant issues with—mostly because of the antiseptic view it takes of responses to and actions from theory—but I find useful, is Benjamin C. Jamison, Major, USAF’s, The Counterforce Continuum and Tailored Targeting: A New Look at United States Nuclear Targeting Methods and Modern Deterrence:

“…if a state is the first to employ nuclear weapons, a counterforce targeting strategy designed as a disarming first strike is the most advantageous approach. In contrast, if the state is responding to a nuclear attack, it ought to use a countervalue targeting strategy as a retaliatory response. While these two approaches have evolved since the Cold War, they remain the foundation of nuclear targeting. With technological advances in the form of precision delivery and low- yield nuclear weapons, and the distinctly different geopolitical climate of 2021 compared to the height of the Cold War, it is time to reevaluate these targeting strategies."

It is easy to fall down this rabbit hole and never come back, so let’s pull back a bit from the highly-arguable details and look at the big pixels.

As no one will give a short and clear definition of the two largest pillars in the discussion, counterforce and countervalue, I’ll offer my own one sentence shorthand:

• Counterforce: targeting your enemy’s military capability with the goal of minimizing their ability to continue significant nuclear exchange. Traditional state-on-state warfare, with nuclear characteristics.

• Countervalue: targeting your enemy’s population centers with the goal of eliminating their population. In essence, a war of annihilation, AKA Tamerlane’s way of war against cities.

Do we really know what the doctrine is of any opponent? No.

Do we really know what our doctrine will be for each scenario? No.

Assume that we have a whole series of war options that span the spectrum—as do our opponents—but you only get one general nuclear war to fight, so what can you expect?

Blue and Red have two general options: counterforce and countervalue.

Given limited resources and only one chance to play this game, what do you choose?

LAST DANCE WITH THE GENIE

The first play only has four options.

You really only have two options, because if anyone goes countervalue, the other party will as well.

Why? Simple.

If the first strike party targets the population (countervalue) at the expense of military targets, then the other party will have a remnant military power that will see the population it is sworn to defend deliberately targeted for genocidal extermination, which is what countervalue is.

That party, if they attacked counterforce while their enemy attacked countervalue will have kept additional nuclear weapons in reserve that survived.

Thousands of years of human history will tell you what the response will be. Even a mildly successful focused counterforce attack in response to attack will degrade the enemy’s military to the point their remaining population centers will be open for attack. The second strike from the remaining military forces on the receiving end of a countervalue attack will spare no mercy. No quarter should be expected, nor deserved.

A dual countervalue attack on the first play will result to both nations’ remaining military forces focused on a mission of mutual genocidal extermination to the last available nuke.

You don’t even have to go to ancient examples of this brainstem part of the human condition, just look at the behavior of “modern” Western nations in the mid-19th century Paraguayan War.

I am sure that some of you will have an issue with my suggestion that if both parties have a counterforce strategy that someone could “win.” Well, depends on how you define “win,” but yes.

If you can keep what is left of your nation intact, even if it is but a shadow of what it was, then you could call it such—but it is a win no one would want. There is also a chance that the nation who does the hard work at peace to make sure their weapons work as needed might have a more effective strike could come out on tope because the other the nation’s military lied and faked performance of its strategic systems at peace and was plagued by failures and inaccuracies.

The United States could lose 70% of its population and still have a bit over 100 million souls. That is a nation. A starving and sick nation, but a nation nonetheless.

That’s little solace, as you’d have hundreds of millions dead, your economy destroyed, and your land polluted for centuries. This leads to a point not discussed enough: all four possible outcomes have severe global consequences.

Regardless of the combination of NATO-RUSSIA-CHINA-USA in a peer nuclear exchange along the lines above, independent of the devastation in the nations involved in the exchange, it is the rest of the world where most of the dying will take place.

Russia, China, and North America are the world’s breadbaskets. Without the free flow of agricultural goods, both raw foodstuffs and fertilizer, the human population cannot feed itself. Even if agriculture was not disrupted, the radiation will make the food that is harvested, unmarketable for years to centuries. A few nations in the Southern Hemisphere might be able to produce contamination free food to satisfy their local needs, but nothing for export.

We will see in the years that follow any general nuclear exchange in the northern hemisphere, global starvation to a degree never seen. Most of Africa, the Middle East, and especially South Asia will be nightmares few can imagine.

Will it be the end of mankind? No. As a species, we have survived worse, but human civilization will enter a new era no one today can quite define. What I am willing to say, like I did earlier, is that modern civilization will be led by Australia, New Zealand, Argentina. Maybe Chile too. Brazil will try, but she can never get out of her way.

The best way to prevent a general nuclear exchange is to deter it from taking place. However, if history delivers it at your feet even if you try to avoid it, shouldn’t you at least try to have a chance, however small, of coming out of it in one piece?

In light of the above, what should we be investing in?

21st CENTURY NUCLEAR FORCE

Right now we have the ICBM, SSBN, and manned bomber as our strategic deterrence, AKA The Triad.

The Triad is an inertia-based holdover of the Eisenhower Era that ended almost a decade before I was born, and the contest with the Soviet Union that ended when I was a LTjg.

It is 2025, not 1975. We don’t wear the same clothes, nor should we approach nuclear theory the same way either. There are better alternatives, and I’ll outline one below.

As we find in many areas, due to delays and general poor stewardship of our nuclear forces for the last decade—always pushing decisions to the right—recapitalization of our nuclear deterrence force is in crisis.

Our present Triad? Let’s be blunt about what our inheritance is in 2025.

ICBM: The Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles are as geriatric in theory as their support systems are in practice. Its replacement, the Sentinel, is not shockingly late and overbudget.

SSBN: Heck, I’ve been warning of this problem since 2010, but our youngest Ohio Class SSBN is 28 years old. The oldest four were converted to SSGN, leaving 14 SSBN. Its replacement, the dozen Columbia Class SSBN, besides having 4 fewer missiles as it was designed during a different strategic situation, is expected to be ready in 2031.

Bombers: On a good day, we might have a dozen fully mission capable B-2 bombers. Probably less. The B-1 bombers are conventional only and the B-52 cannot survive anywhere near contested air—relegated to stand off nuclear weapons and/or suicide missions.

Of course, as also have nuclear gravity bombs that TACAIR fighters like the F-35 can carry. In 2025, they are the nuclear equivalent to the bayonet. If you have to use it, you are in trouble. You don’t lead an attack with it, and by the time it becomes an option, you are surrounded with death and gore. It is comfortable to have in your kit, “just in case” - but it won’t decide wars.

The greatest use that gravity bombs serve is the nuclear equivalent of a security blanket for our allies. NATO gravity bombs are a signaling device that convince the Germans, Poles or anyone else that, really, they don’t need to build their own nukes.

Should the ballon go up, they won’t be of much use, especially in Europe. If they survive a first strike, and if they ever receive the authorization to strike themselves, by the time they reach their targets—if they reach their targets—much of the exchange will be over and their one way trip—as there will be no refueling aircraft available on the trip home—will be mostly in vain.

So, that is what we have. What should we invest in the future?

ICBM: Let’s be clear, ICBM in 2025 is a first strike weapon. We have them because we have them because we have them, all 400 single-warhead of them. Are they really a deterrence worth the cost and investment? No. Are they of any use besides an age-ending first-use nuclear exchange? No. Can their age-ending effects and deterrence be done by other more survivable yet equally effective platforms? Yes.

The ICBM leg of The Triad served our nation well, but is no longer the best tool to achieve the deterrence we desire.

We can sundown our nuclear ICBM with no impact on strategic defense. As a pleasant side effect—we could move on to the more useful and needed conventionally armed ballistic missile arena without other powers wondering if we launch one if it has a nuclear warhead.

SSBN: The Ohio can, in theory, carry 20 SLBM (though built to carry 24), the Columbia 16. They can have a MIRV’d warhead. Once underway, they are the most survivable part of the present Triad, and they are just as accurate as ICBM. We can, and should, build more to cover the targeting gap left by the ICBM force. Create a Flight II Columbia Class with that can carry 20 missiles if that is what is needed. We can get that additional funding from the decommissioning of the obsolete ICBM force.

Bombers: These are the most useful of the deterrence force as they are dual use. With the B-21 ready for serial production, we should build a lot more of them than we plan too. As we learned (again) earlier this month, they don’t have to wait for the end of the world to be used. They are a solid investment due to their flexibility more than anything else. Let’s make sure the nuclear armed AGM-181A Long-Range Standoff cruise missile is a success as well.

Others:

• Gravity Bombs: As outlined above, like the bayonet, they have a use or two, but should not be relied on as a primary tool

• SLCM-N: I’ve made my feelings about SLCM-N known last October. I won’t repeat them here. Executive Summary: not just no, he11 no.

In crisis is opportunity. We can maintain nuclear deterrence while at the same time streamlining, simplifying, and maybe even freeing up funds for the most likely fight—a conventional one primarily in the sea and air west of the International Date Line.

If we do this right, we can help keep the nuclear genie in its bottle. If we let the intellectual blob continue as if nothing has changed for decades, we not only will increase costs, we will decrease deterrence…and with that, increase the odds of a war no one wants.