Counterforcing deters escalation, and when it doesn’t we can just first strike!

Deterrence and Counterforce Robust nuclear deterrence is in large part a function of the survivability of retaliatory forces, meaning the ability of either adversary to withstand a disarming strike and still inflict a devastating response on the attacker. An effective deterrent posture must deter all leaders, including highly aggressive ones, and it must succeed in peacetime, during intense crises, or in the midst of conventional wars. In short, maintaining a survivable nuclear retaliatory force is foundational to deterrence. The new era of counterforce threatens this foundation. Maintaining a survivable retaliatory force is becoming difficult because of the vulnerability of fixed sites against today’s highly accurate delivery systems. Technological advances mean that both nuclear and conventional strike systems pose a plausible disarming threat to even the hardest fixed targets. Concealment is also at risk. Trends in remote sensing – from the growing diversity of sensing platforms to the improvement in sensor resolution, persistence, processing, and transmission – are eroding the security that mobility once provided. Historically, land-based mobile forces wishing to remain concealed merely needed to hide from optical satellites or manned aircraft passing intermittently and quickly overhead. Now, they must worry about a plethora of satellites and other sensors – some of which loiter, gathering streams of data. SSBNs also face new and meaningful advances that threaten their ability to stay concealed at sea. Although none of these technological trends alone are transformative, taken together they are creating a degree of transparency that was unimaginable even two decades ago. While the survivability of deterrent forces may be on shaky ground, the new era of counterforce means that the U.S. can plausibly disarm adversaries if deterrence fails. The threat of using nuclear weapons against the United States is often seen as merely the strategy of delusional leaders or terrorists, but U.S. adversaries may have good reasons to engage in such escalation. Throughout the nuclear age, countries lacking sufficient conventional forces to repel a major attack have relied on nuclear threats to deter or stalemate conventional war. Specifically, relatively weaker countries have planned to use nuclear weapons in order to halt a conventional conflict before they suffer catastrophic defeat. This was NATO’s strategy for much of the Cold War, and it has been adopted by Russia, Pakistan, and North Korea today. Now that the United States possesses the world’s most powerful conventional force, it faces significant escalation risks. For example, if war erupts on the Korean Peninsula, or in the Baltics, or possibly even in maritime East Asia, U.S. adversaries will likely need a quick way to stalemate superior U.S. conventional forces. Nuclear escalation offers adversaries one of the only viable options for forcing a stalemate and avoiding catastrophic defeat during a conventional war.[21] This is the strategic context in which potent counterforce capabilities may benefit the United States. Such capabilities may not appear attractive to U.S. leaders in peacetime. But in the midst of a conventional conflict – especially after an adversary like North Korea has begun to escalate – the ability to conduct a counterforce disarming strike might be enormously valuable. The possession of potent counterforce capabilities might even bolster deterrence – by deterring adversaries from initiating a conventional war in the first place, or by compelling them to accept conventional defeat rather than reaching for nuclear weapons. In addition to those worthy deterrence objectives, the ability to mitigate or eliminate the costs inflicted by an adversary that has begun to escalate is a worthy goal in its own right. U.S. Force Structure U.S. leaders should consider the implications of the new era of counterforce for both deterrence and escalation. The growing vulnerability of retaliatory forces might bolster the case for developing a mobile ICBM instead of replacing the silo-based ICBM. All silo-based ICBM options will face the same type of vulnerability problem faced by existing missiles; and the vulnerability of fixed silos will only grow worse over the coming decades. Similarly, U.S. leaders should beware of overreliance on the sea-leg of the triad: SSBNs have never been as invulnerable as analysts typically assume, and the popular notion that the oceans are a sanctuary for retaliatory forces is outdated. Moreover, a strategy relying entirely on the concealment of submarines is a “fail deadly” one – meaning that if an adversary discovers a way to locate one’s forces, one’s arsenal might shift from being almost completely survivable to almost completely vulnerable in a short period of time – and without warning.[22] To bolster counterforce capabilities, leaders should focus on several desirable delivery system characteristics: promptness (to hit targets before they are fired or moved), accuracy (to improve the odds of destroying key targets), and low yields (in order to preserve the possibility of disarming the adversary without causing large-scale collateral damage). Air-delivered bombs – like the B-61 bomb currently undergoing a life-extension program – and cruise missiles offer a valuable combination of high accuracy and flexible yield options. The long-range stand-off cruise missile (LRSO), which would replace current nuclear cruise missiles, will also serve an important role as a system that can threaten enemy targets protected by sophisticated air defense systems. Finally, as the United States modernizes its ICBMs and SLBMs – and the warheads they carry – U.S. planners should exploit new technologies that will enhance accuracy further, as well as consider low and flexible yield options for those warheads. In short, the new era of counterforce poses long-term challenges and opportunities for U.S. nuclear policy, strategy, and force structure. Some readers may worry that U.S. steps to enhance counterforce will be destabilizing. Increasingly insecure adversaries might pursue countermeasures to make their arsenals survivable once again, which could exacerbate tensions, trigger arms races, and create dangerous incentives to preempt in a crisis. These concerns have validity because U.S. adversaries will seek ways to blunt the threat of a U.S. disarming strike. However, such potential problems will be at least partly offset by the benefits of more robust deterrence; specifically, U.S. adversaries are less likely to undertake a coercive nuclear escalation strategy if they recognize the vast threat to their arsenals posed by robust U.S. counterforce capabilities. Perhaps more importantly, the United States cannot roll back the technological advances behind the new era of counterforce. The breakthroughs in accuracy and remote sensing are here to stay – if for no other reason than they are now the foundation of conventional military operations. The best we can do is harness these technological changes to bolster deterrence and reduce the likelihood and consequences of escalation. The same technologies that render arsenals vulnerable just might make deterrence stronger.