Bulletin By Andrew Facini | October 27, 2023
"............................................In the span of two weeks, several major policy documents—including a bipartisan Congressional report on strategic posture and a Defense Department update on China's estimated nuclear stockpile—have put the US nuclear posture vis-à-vis China front and center. The reports, which focus heavily on hardware and capability, contribute to a years-long deliberation with policymakers and analysts attempting to counter a perceived risk of tipping military balance in the Indo-Pacific. China's nuclear weapons buildup is driving concerns among US allies and partners in the region over the aggression Beijing could possibly engage in, once its nuclear arsenal can "shield" the country from retaliation. The perceived threat is so intense that it has become a top national security concern in Washington.
Concerningly, however, the domestic debate about countering China's growing arsenal has thus far dwelled almost exclusively on US capability—narrowly defining the problem and asking what combination of new nuclear missiles, increased forward-deployments, or friendly technology-sharing can maintain US dominance in a crisis and therefore deter China from taking aggressive steps. Unsurprisingly, the recommendations that followed ranged from adding more warheads to US missiles and building more nuclear submarines to—considered as important—adopting a posture of force-meets-force superiority at all levels against Chinese nuclear weapons in the Pacific.
But in aggressively pursuing capability surges alone, the United States may end up on the wrong side of the stability-instability paradox, risking escalation to nuclear war—intentional or not—through an overreliance on introducing untested or provocative technologies.
Instead, a stronger US strategy for responding to the challenge posed by China's growing arsenal should be for the United States to supplement military capability by building multiple levels of mutual understanding and routes toward risk reduction across the Pacific. These measures must be implemented urgently and certainly before a crisis forces China and the United States to seriously test their nuclear deterrence relationship.
Capability fixation drives instability. One counter-productive distraction from a multi-level, risk-reduction approach to China is found in the sustained call for the fielding of new systems like the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N) and other tactical nuclear weapons ostensibly meant for battlefield use. Promoting these systems as a purported solution to future crises places incentives in all the wrong places and dangerously complicates the possible outcomes in a conflict.
For its part, the SLCM-N (which the White House has already rejected via its most recent Nuclear Posture Review but a hawks-dominated Congress funded anyway) is a seemingly straightforward proposal to replace some of the cruise missiles on submarines with nuclear-armed ones. But just by its presence, the SLCM-N would pave the way for all US cruise missiles deployed to the Pacific to be potentially armed with nuclear warheads. If this happens, Chinese political and military leaders would have to conservatively assume that any incoming US cruise missile is nuclear-armed, prompting a presumption of escalation and adding extreme pressures for a rapid nuclear counter-attack, even as the US missile is still en route. If a regional crisis erupts for which a conventionally armed Tomahawk sea-launched strike would be an appropriate response, US leaders would suddenly have very good reason to hesitate.
By all accounts, the expanded destructive capability of the SLCM-N would create a self-imposed constraint that risks cutting out a major swath of conventional escalation options by muddling intermediate systems like cruise missiles with a nuclear option. Making an entire rapid-response weapons platform (one already with broad new investments in the region) less usable in favor of implied nuclear escalation is precisely the scenario SLCM-N advocates are trying to head off.
Tactical nuclear weapons also complicate the deterrence equation in a broader sense. In a contested and alarming information environment, even cautious beliefs about escalation control would be rendered academic while mushroom clouds rise over a battlefield. Far better would be to drive up the threshold for nuclear use at any level and communicate that intention clearly through both policy and force posture decisions.
Even during the early years of the Cold War when emerging technologies were filling out more of the "middle rungs" of the escalation ladder with tactical nuclear capabilities, it was seen as critical to maintain and keep clear the distinction between the first battle in West Germany and the ultimate destruction of Washington and Moscow. In blurring the picture of how the first hours of a nuclear conflict with China would be managed by both sides, setting clear decision-making timeframes and thresholds ahead of time would prove to be a safer and stronger strategic posture, helping to reduce uncertainty and panic in a crisis.........................................................................................................
Now is the time to forge a better mutual understanding with Beijing, not to escalate tensions. Holding multi-level dialogues about intentions; building reliable, resilient communication channels; and fostering those hard-to-quantify personal connections that can quell dangerous arms-racing instincts—or at least add critical resistance to escalation in a crisis—should be emphasized alongside any examination of force posture. Some military policy changes—including weapons modernization—may be required to meet the moment, but the approach in Washington thus far has been badly constrained to the force-meets-force thinking which, if taken alone, will only multiply risks and add untested variables for the United States and its allies.
The need to understand Beijing and find pre-crisis paths to reduce tensions is ultimately much more important and urgent than any given weapons system or revised strategic posture. Doing that work will be difficult and require sustained investment in both civil society and government processes at the highest levels, but it is a necessary component of maintaining deterrence to avoid nuclear war. https://thebulletin.org/2023/10/why-the-us-fixation-on-increased-nuclear-capability-wont-deter-china-but-could-lead-to-instability-and-nuclear-war/ #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes
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