Foreign Policy In Focus

You know how we're always hearing that we're stuck with nuclear weapons forever because the knowledge it took to create them can't be unlearned? Those who believe that disarmament is both dangerous and pointless make the case that sufficiently threatened, a state that once possessed nuclear weapons can always restart the production lines. But, however obvious that may seem, perhaps it's not quite so straightforward.

In November 2010 the Hudson Institute published a paper by fellow Christopher Ford entitled Nuclear Weapons Reconstitution and its Discontents: Challenges of "Weaponless Deterrence". The phrase in quotes, also known as "virtual deterrence," means that, even if state were to reach something approximating Global Zero, they could still deter each other with the ability to ramp up production of their nuclear weapons should they decide a national-security crisis warranted it. But exactly how viable is that?

In a section of his paper titled "The Problem of Re-Learning," Ford writes: 

. . . a former nuclear weapons possessor would need to take careful account of the fact that in an arcane and sophisticated arena such as nuclear weapons design, it can be terribly hard to re-learn after a long absence what one was previously able to do. It may be the case, as Jonathan Schell has argued, that "the knowledge" of how to make nuclear weapons cannot be erased from the world, but one must qualify this by an appreciation that there are a great many different levels of knowledge of nuclear weapons design. 

For example, preserving the knowledge of how to make 

. . . a ballistic missile re-entry vehicle that must not only be fairly small but also carefully engineered for mating to and precise detachment from its booster under the demanding physical and environmental circumstances of trans-atmospheric travel [is a] demanding requirement. If one were additionally constrained by [a prohibition against building] "new nuclear weapons," . . .  the requirements would be tougher still.  According to some experts interviewed for this study, quickly and reliably rebuilding present U.S. "legacy" designs years from now -- and with a workforce none of the members of which had been involved in building or testing them in the first place -- might scarcely be possible at all.

Ford refers to this as a problem (for plans for weaponless deterrence, anyway). In fact, it provides some hope that nuclear knowledge can be, if not unlearned, too rusty and dusty to be of any real use. In the end, weaponless deterrence may turn out to be ineffective as a last resort in the event of abolition. Neither may nuclear knowledge prove to be as much a barrier to disarmament as it now seems.

Maybe this should be filed under the category of Watch Out What You Wish For. But in the event, however utopian-sounding, that Global Zero is achieved and every state in possession of nuclear weapons agrees to destroy them, how would it be enforced? The Global Zero movement's own step-by-step plan drawn up in February 2010 refers only to an "agreed upon mechanism for resolving compliance disputes and, in the case of violations, enforcing compliance."

In his disturbing new book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III (Simon & Schuster), which we've been citing in a series of posts, Ron Rosenbaum asks:

. . . wouldn't the inspection regime require explosive weapons powerful enough to blow open sealed underground bunkers where prohibited nuclear mischief might be going on?

Answering his own question, he writes:

In fact, the inspection regime would somehow have to be the most powerful political entity on earth, perhaps relying on a monopoly of nuclear weapons itself, and thus deterrence, and we're back where we started.

In other words, Global Zero could provide us with the worst of both worlds: for conservatives, world government (new world order!). For Global Zero supporters: disarmament turned inside out, becoming instead a means by which the existence of nuclear weapons in perpetuity is guaranteed.

If doomed by a nuclear attack, is there any reason to retaliate in kind? In other words, if we're about to be wiped off the face off the earth, how does it help up us -- beyond the consolation (for the 15 minutes we'll be alive) of Biblical revenge taken to the nth degree -- to decimate the attacking nation? One suspects that it's one of the few questions about nuclear weapons that has crossed the mind of many in the American public.

In his remarkable new book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III (Simon & Schuster), Ron Rosenbaum virtually wallows in that question. It's been eating at him for all the years he's been writing about nuclear weapons. At a symposium on nuclear deterrence in 2009 he actually questioned Major General C. Donald Alston, currently head of the nation's intercontinental ballistic missile force, and at the time the Pentagon's assistant chief of staff, Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration Headquarters, on just that point.

"If we get attacked, a surprise attack. What in your view is the morality of retaliation at that point?"

Major General Alston's entire response was curious. (Buy the book.) But most intriguing:

"Well I guess in the position I'm in I'd say . . . response in kind." Interesting that he doesn't suggest that it's necessarily what he believes is right himself. It's "the position I'm in." [Also, without] prompting he brings up the difficulty of deciding what "in kind" would mean.

"What would be -- how would you do the calculus on what response in kind would be? So I think that [response in kind] would be one course of action but that [the president] wouldn't be brought a singular course of action." In other words, he'd have options other than retaliation.

Major General Alston added, "In my job I have no propensity for response in kind." Rosenbaum concludes, "If I'm reading this right . . he's showing a reluctance to retaliate."

The top nuclear commander (then and now) General Kevin Chilton, chief of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), might not have approved of his subordinate's response. Asked the same question, General Chilton replied that one issue

". . . you have to be cautious about when discussing a philosophical or, truly, hypothetical question is that you don't send a mixed signal that would confuse anybody about your intention."

In other words, debate in public about deterrence on the part of the military might send the wrong signal to other nuclear-weapons states. When push comes to shove, the president may flinch and fail to issue the order to launch an attack or military command in possession of the codes that ignite the attack might waver. A united front is equally as important a component of deterrence -- if you believe in that sort of thing -- as the nuclear weapons themselves. The saying "loose lips sinks ships" applies not only to leaking secrets but giving the enemy the impression of a command structure that's divided against itself.

The term "second strike" has the potential to mislead. If you're like me, your first reaction is to think it means an enemy that goes on the offensive and launches a first strike, we retaliate, and the enemy launches a second strike. In fact, the retaliatory strike is considered the second strike. Instead of first and second strike, why not just call it attack and retaliation?

As for the actual morality of the second strike when a state knows it's doomed, it's helpful to refer back to how George Lakoff describes the attitude of conservatives toward the underserved. They feel that, aside from church or individual charity, federal or state assistance only enables them in their disempowerment and perpetuates its continuation. Conservatives' idea of helping means pulling the safety net out from under the underserved and forcing them to stand on their own two feet (whether disabled or not). That's the conservative moral code.

A similar line of thinking may inform the traditional attitude of  nuclear war planners toward responding to a first strike. However unconsciously, they think that refraining from retaliating when you know you're doomed is no longer about you. It doesn't help the attacking state to think it's been rewarded for its aggression. In fact, refraining from making it pay in kind not only encourages such behavior in the future, but is harmful to the state. When, though it's of no earthly advantage to us, we launch a second strike, we may be taking the lives of the citizens and command structure of the aggressor state, but we're saving their souls.

Many believe that deterrence -- once often known as Mutual Assured Destruction -- deserves most or all of the credit for preventing the outbreak of nuclear war. In his new book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III (Simon & Schuster), about which we've been posting, Ron Rosenbuam cites a book published in 2008, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945 (Cambridge University Press).*

Author Nina Tannenwald, he writes, who maintains that "the prevailing explanation -- which she attributes to the realist school of foreign policy, which tends to see the behavior of nations as the pure product of self-interest -- is wrong."

Besides deterrence 

. . . she argues for a second explanation for nuclear non-use, something from the realm of ideas and ideals that nonetheless acquired real-world power: the development of a "nuclear taboo" that evolved from an abstract ethical norm into something more than a norm. . . . Tannenwald finds instance after instance of American leaders thinking that first use of nuclear weapons, as in preventive or preemptive war, was . . . wrong morally and ethically, "inconsistent with American values," which call for "discrimination and proportionality in use of force."

Oh, just like we demonstrated in World War II with our attacks on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Hamburg, Dresden . . . (you get the idea). We'll let Rosenbaum continue.

But she also supports her explanation of nuclear non-use by citing an important study of the period by the nuclear historian and analyst George Quester [who] concluded that "the failure to even threaten [a nuclear attack] has to be explained more by moral absolutes than by the rational calculations of the American government." It's a daring argument [that] asks us to believe that abstractions, "values," fear of moral opprobrium, "stigmatization," "shaming" -- the punishments for breaking taboos -- became real-world factors as decisive as warhead throw-weight. It's also an attractive argument, because it suggests that military and political leaders have a conscience that evolved in the face of a possible world holocaust.

An example of how this phenomenon might manifest itself in even a leader not noted for much in the way of character is provided in this vignette of Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev by David Hoffman in his instant classic, The Dead Hand (Anchor Books, 2009).

In 1972, the General Staff presented to the leadership [of the Soviet Union] results of a study of a possible nuclear war after a first strike by the United States. They reported . . . 80 million citizens were dead; 85 percent of Soviet industry was in ruins. Brezhnev and Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin were visibly terrified by what they heard, according to Adrian Danilevich, a general who took part. Next, three launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles with dummy warheads were planned. Brezhnev was provided a button in the exercise and he was to push it at the proper moment. Defense Minister Andrei Grechko was standing next to Brezhnev, and Danilevich next to Grechko. "When the time came to push the button," Danielevich recalled, "Brezhnev was visibly shaken and pale and his hand trembled and he asked Grechko several times for assurances that the action would not have any real world consequences. Brezhnev turned to Grechko and asked, "'Are you sure this is just an exercise?'"

About world leaders growing a conscience, Rosenbaum writes (emphasis added).

It would be nice to believe. But that certainly did not filter down to the missile crewmen I interviewed, who were mainly concerned . . . with making sure they could carry out the genocidal threat of deterrence. Instead, it was almost taboo . . . to talk about reasons for not committing retaliatory genocide, such as questioning the sanity of whoever gave the order. 

Nor is a terrorist group that could conceivably get its hands on nuclear weapons, such as Pakistan's Taliban or al Qaeda, likely to be susceptible to a nuclear taboo. Islamist extremists confine taboos to sexual mores and dietary laws (halal). In fact, paralleling the missile crewmen, refusal to use whatever weapons fall into their hands is what's probably really taboo to them. Rosenbaum continues.

There are two further problems with Tannenwald's taboo analysis. . . . Does the taboo extend down to even the smallest battlefield nuclear-tipped artillery, less powerful than many conventional weapons? [Also, Tannenwald] gives the impression that abstract ethical thinking alone was responsible for something as powerful as this taboo. [She] tends to neglect . . . culture [e.g] Hiroshima and the way it's been portrayed and visually sacralized, and the power of popular culture.

Besides Life magazine photos showing Hiroshima's living victims, Rosenbaum cites John Hersey's New Yorker essay turned into a book Hiroshima.

. . . the power of Hersey's spare but unsparing prose was the foundation stone, the rock on which the taboo was founded [and he deserves] credit for the geopolitical effect [of his book] on the dormant consciences of the world's leaders.

Rosenbaum also cites films from On the Beach to Dr. Strangelove to The Day After. He concludes

Cumulatively culture has had a powerful effect in creating the norm and contributing to the taboo. I would even go so far as to say that popular culture more than politics was responsible for the peace movement becoming -- in its nuclear freeze phase -- a mass phenomenon.

But, he notes that the taboo itself "could undo the taboo."

If there is no certainty of retaliatory response, because tabooed, a foe would be more likely to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons for a first strike regardless of the taboo since they would have reason to believe retaliation was taboo.

In other words, however unexpected a blessing the taboo has turned out to be, it's foolhardy to rely on so fragile a phenomenon to protect us from a nuclear holocaust.

*In a more recent book, The Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons (Stanford University Press, 2009), T.V. Paul also explores the nuclear taboo.

What's the worst way to die? Most will agree that perishing in a fire is at or close to the top of their list.

A number of factors inform those members of the America public who are in favor of the United States maintaining nuclear weapons to deter other nations. On one level, they fear the loss of liberty, which, during the Cold War, translated into life under communism should the Soviet Union defeat us. (Of course, the fall of communism begs the question: to which form of government do we fear being subjected should Russia defeat us today? A nominally more flagrant plutocracy than currently rules in the United States?)

Meanwhile, those subject to fear of a nuclear-terrorism attack by Islamist extremists tend to operate under the assumption that only death awaits us. Faced by an equally plausible scenario in which we're held hostage to their demands, we'd instead fear shariah law. (Just a cut below Stalinism, according to the hard right.)

Much of the public believes that even if nuclear weapons fail to prevent an attack by another nuclear-weapon state, at least we'll be able to use them to retaliate and ensure the survival of the United States. Of course, this reflects an ignorance of just how damaged the United States would be after a first strike by another country, as well as a disturbing acceptance of mass death in warfare to the nth agree (a topic for another day).

To reiterate, at the most primal level, we fear fire. But, the implications of it are too dreadful for most of us to contemplate. Instead we erect a firewall, if you will, in our psyche that insulates us from the knowledge that nuclear war likely means death by fire.

Nor does our lack of knowledge of history help. Hiroshima aside, how many have learned or recall learning of the firestorms created by the bombing of Hamburg and Dresden in World War II? If war is a nightmare, firestorms are the stuff of horror films. 

Fire has a way of reducing matters to the essentials. In other words, if being consumed by flames ranks as the most frightening form of death, ergo, avoiding death by fire outranks avoiding life under communism or under shariah law. But there also exists among the American public those who seek not to escape death by fire, but actually embrace the prospect of an apocalyptic conflagration. This theatrical means of escorting them to the afterlife will also, they believe, purge the planet of its wickedness.

The difficulty that nuclear disarmament advocates face is opening up Americans (those who don't embrace the end times, anyway) to the fear of fire that nuclear war represents. Unfortunately, Americans seem only to respond to scare tactics from the right.