U.S. Air Force Strategic Deterrence Analytic Capabilities An Assessment of Tools, Methods, and Approaches for the 21st Century Security Environment (2014) / Chapter Skim
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2 Analytic Issues and Factors Affecting Deterrence and Assurance
2 Analytic Issues and Factors Affecting Deterrence and Assurance
Pages 22-50
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strategic planning including nuclear and other forces.2 These objectives include (1) a generalized strategic stability that includes healthy change without aggression or arms races; (2)
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and Assurance other Inuence Enablers and Political, military, and economic constraints capability and capacities FIGURE 2-1 Objectives in strategic planning that includes nuclear forces. SOURCE: Adapted from Davis (2011)
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with defense or resilience or by helping an adversary recognize courses of action more in the adversary's interest; and punishments for past actions to improve future deterrence -- that is, to improve "cumulative deterrence." 4 Discussions sometimes use "deterrence" to refer, with regrettable looseness, to a combination of dissuasion, classic deterrence, and cumulative deterrence. The report recognizes this (bottom right of figure)
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commitment to and capability for extended deterrence for the purpose of dissuading the ally from developing its own nuclear arsenal. Reassurance Reducing fears of potential adversaries regarding U.S.
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They have been concerned both about the immorality of indiscriminate use and about how overly blunt options undercut the credibility that the United States would use nuclear forces if it had to. Having no option other than Armageddon is, arguably, to have no option.5 As a result of such concerns, limited nuclear options were emphasized as part of flexible-response strategy, and by the end of the 1970s and after extensive analysis across three administrations, the United States settled on an even broader "coun tervailing strategy." The term countervailing was a nuance: Although assumptions about warfighting and war winning seem to lose meaning in scenarios involving massive nuclear exchanges, the United States wanted to assure that any Soviet lead ers would conclude that no nuclear warfighting strategy could lead to meaningful victory and that the price would be too high.
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Its programs appear to include tactical nuclear weap ons, and its planning presumably includes preparing for at least limited nuclear warfighting.12 Although Indian nuclear policy is ambiguous, Indian officials have spoken of being at liberty to use conventional force given their nuclear capability. Additional observations could be made regarding Israeli, North Korean, British, and French perspectives.
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direct versus extended deterrence; (3) deterring nuclear attacks versus deterring conventional attacks; (4)
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. Such weapons are extremely lethal.18 It is well to note here that heuristics such as "nuclear weapons only deter nuclear use" are examples of how people have sought to categorize weapons neatly.
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Diplomats often claim that achieving assurance is 19 This included a session with Bradley Roberts, until recently the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy, an earlier briefing by David Stein, Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy) , and an information-gathering session at U.S.
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The degree of assurance that can be achieved, then, is inextricably related to the credibility of extended deterrence.
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Nonetheless, as Table 2-2 suggests, some important differences of degree exist and some issues are indeed new. 22 One consequence of change is that it is now more necessary to study the possibilities of very limited nuclear exchanges and limited nuclear war.
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Accelerated advances and spread of strategic technologies. The expectation of future technologies that may alter basics such as how we think about command and control, air and missile defense, antisubmarine warfare, and survivability against nonnuclear forces.
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WHAT ISSUES SHOULD ANALYSIS ADDRESS? A core task for this study is identifying which issues involving nuclear forces should be of concern, which questions should be addressed analytically, and which methods of analysis might help.
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Because of the escalatory potential of even smallish conflicts, "rules of the road" are vague in important areas such as cy berspace, outer space, South Asia, the Middle East, and East Asia. Better ones are needed.
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. Related work continues (see, e.g., National Research Council, 2011, and Abdollahian et al., 2006, with the Senturion model)
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It is perhaps surprising that the literature on deterrence theory continues to be dominated by rational-actor theory, but this is changing with the more widespread appreciation of lessons from psychology accumulated over the last half century or so. Which types of approaches can help in going beyond rational-actor assump tions?
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Addressing deep uncertainties need not mean paralysis; instead, it means pragmatically recognizing and bounding them, assessing the relative sig nificance of the many such uncertainties, and identifying hedges and adaptations.35 Less work has been published on deep uncertainty in connection with deter rence and assurance, but a review of modern decision science for the Air Force Office of Scientific Research drew on historical lessons about flaws in top-level U.S. national security planning in crisis and implications from decision science.36 A major conclusion was that it has been common for flawed decision making to be driven by best estimates about the adversary and that it should be a matter of doctrine for high-level decision-aiding to seek strategies that hedge against poten tial misunderstanding about the adversary.
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, and Nonstate Actors (see Table 2-4) .40 Reexamining Ballistic Missile Defense with Extended Deterrence in Mind One theme that emerges from discussion of modern-day deterrence and as surance is the increasing significance of ballistic missile defenses (BMD)
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S . A i r F o r c e S t r at e g i c D e t e r r e n c e A n a ly t i c C a pa b i l i t i e s TABLE 2-4 Key Questions Suggesting Test Cases for Analysis of Deterrence Type of Adversary Stressful Question Peer Could Russia find itself providing nuclear deterrence enhancement to regional players such as China or the DPRK, which could transform regional escalatory calculations into global deterrence dynamics?
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Anticipating the Unexpected: Technological and Other Drivers of Change The pace of technological change increases the likelihood of technological surprise with strategic consequences.44 The synergistic advances in information technology (IT) , computation, materials, advanced manufacturing, exotic sensors, enhanced energetic materials and fuels, and the like may have direct effects in the areas of air and missile defenses, advanced conventional munitions, ballistic and cruise missiles, antisubmarine warfare, cyberwarfare, counter-space capabilities, and others which could undermine traditional nuclear deterrent forces.
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Some allies have wanted systems that they see tangibly as "their nuclear umbrella," such as the TLAM-N sea-launched cruise missile, while others have been satisfied seeing central system components such as sea-launched ballis tic missiles. Even the nature of individual nuclear warheads can be controversial.
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Other measures on which perceptions vary include fast versus slow flyers, alert rates, unit versus force survivability, day-to-day versus generated force postures, individual versus force performance, dependence on warning, and safety and security measures. This study did not examine such issues in detail but thought that they should be highlighted in future Air Force and DoD efforts to address safety, security, and effectiveness.
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An alternative approach, the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, a program to develop a family of "new" warheads embodying advanced technologies and designs intended to be highly reliable and more sustainable (Congressional Research Service, 2005) was terminated in 2009.
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It seems likely that at some point -- despite the sensitivity related to these topics and the likely disruptive effects -- the nation will review all of these matters and either reaffirm or alter stockpile-related policies and programs. If a clean-sheet-of-paper approach is taken, the committee believes that, while new analytic methods will be useful and internal peer review should be strengthened, it would also be valuable to give a major role to scientific and technical experts from outside of the current nuclear enterprise.
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approach to strategic de terrence and assurance needs to be continually adapted, a management plan is required that defines comprehensively the set of continuing analytic foci, which includes nuclear command and control; air and missile defense; cyber, space, geo strategic, and technological changes; and the challenges of tailoring deterrence and assurance to adversaries and allies. This analytic management plan is in addition to tasks related to weapons, forces, personnel, and the nuclear enterprise in general.
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2011. "Structuring Analysis to Support Future Nuclear Forces and Postures." RAND Corp., Santa Monica, Calif.
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2012. "Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis in the Context of Strategic Stability." Discussion Paper 12.
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2008a. Secretary of Defense Task Force on DoD Nuclear Management, Phase I: The Air Force's Nuclear Mission.
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Institute for Defense Analyses, Alexandria, Va. Zilinskas, R.A., ed.
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