New Nukes or No Nukes?
The Bush administration's recent wrangling with Russia over the U.S. plan to put missile defense components in Poland and the Czech Republic is the last thing we should be doing if we want to reduce the danger of nuclear confrontation. Add to this the Department of Energy's plans to build a new generation of nuclear weapons -- under the antiseptic name of the "Reliable Replacement Warhead" -- and you have a strategy almost guaranteed to generate more nuclear weapons states, not fewer.
On the flip side, major Democratic candidates have not only opposed the new warhead, but three of them -- John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson -- have called for the elimination of nuclear weapons altogether. Is their commitment genuine? If so, can it overcome bureaucratic opposition within the U.S. national security apparatus?
Thankfully, Congress is already on the case with respect to the Reliable Replacement Warhead, which is the centerpiece of a two-decade, $150 billion -- yes, billion -- plan to upgrade and "modernize" the entire nuclear weapons complex. The RRW has been de-funded in the House, in significant part due to the leadership of Representatives David Hobson (R-OH) and Pete Visclosky (D-IN). The Senate has only cut it by two-thirds, but there is a real chance that a House-Senate conference on the matter could eliminate all funding for this unnecessary and dangerous project.
As for the Democrats' anti-nuclear trio (paging Hillary -- where are you on this issue?), the question is how serious they are about their commitments -- and of course, whether one of them will be elected president. Obama has adopted a multi-point plan first put forward by a bipartisan group of ex-foreign policy bigwigs that includes George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn. I may have missed it, but I haven't seen anything this detailed from Edwards or Richardson.
The immediate steps towards eliminating nuclear weapons would have to include negotiating with Iran instead of threatening it (even if it requires a patient effort that outlasts the presidency of Ahmadinejad); removing irritants to relations with Russia (item one: missile defense) so that the two nations with 95% of the world's nuclear weapons can get down to the business of serious reductions; and perhaps an international forum in which all nuclear weapons states agree on some next steps on the path to zero.
The United States can well afford to take the lead on this; smaller nuclear powers will be dissuaded from attacking the U.S. as long as it has as few as 100 to 200 nuclear warheads. Reductions below that can wait for a verifiable global agreement. In any case, even without nuclear weapons, the United States has such overwhelming superiority in non-nuclear weapons that it any leader would have to be insane to attack us (tyrants want to stay alive and in power, no matter how crazy they may seem on the surface).
That leaves the domestic constituency for nuclear weapons -- the weapons labs, the right-wing think tanks, the Pentagon officials mired in a Cold War mindset, and conservative members of Congress who think we need the best nukes in the world, as if we were competing with the next store neighbor about who has the fanciest car. All this adds up to the need for any president who is serious about getting rid of nuclear weapons to put considerable energy and focus into the effort, including skillful use of the "bully pulpit." Questioning candidates now about how they would go about the essential task of eliminating nuclear weapons could lead to a more forceful effort later, whether the president elected in 2008 is for elimination or just reduction of our current nuclear arsenal.
Nuclear weapons that we possess will never be completely eliminated---someone will always find a reason to keep some around. (I can think of a few.)
Even if we found some strategic rationale that allowed elimination we would keep some, secretly. Nobody throws away the family jewels. I don't consider South Africa typical in any way, with its revolutionary social change, as well as the fact that it lacks any significant enemies.
What could be eliminated is the sense that nukes have a strategic or tactical value. If they are considered useful at all, theorists will count up the uses and the risks to their availability, and invent some large number of "survivable" forces needed for that range of conceivable uses. This will always ratchet upwards in a kind of mission creep.
So defining them as necessary possessions but useless weapons would allow reduction to a modest true deterrent. I distinguish from imagined strategic deterrent mechanisms imagined by the RAND crowd, where they worried that opponents would not believe in our capacity to use them, thus we went from Dulles" "Massive Retaliation" (implausible) to "counterforce", etc.
Every war game that tested these concepts produced inconclusive results as to whether any strategy was reliable. One thing is sure, though: If a nation is facing annihilation, through overwhelming invasive attack, it just might use nukes. That is something no potential attacker can ignore, and what I call True Deterrence. It doesn't claim any precision, that input X yields output Y, only that one hesitates to invade a country that has nukes (see North Korea).
So simply calling for reduction fails when the Pentagon theorists start doing the briefing rounds. There are so many possible used for these "weapons" that the strategic concept must be attacked first.
And that will run up against the Pentagon, which assumes we want it to maintain dominance in all possible theaters and circumstances. We have to publicly assert that we accept some risk in living on Earth, and do not feel so paranoid that we seek absolute dominance. We should look for a strategic stance that would survive the "what if everybody did it?" test. That precludes dominance, and also precludes large nuclear arsenals with rapid response capability.
October 10, 2007 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I strongly disagree with the idea that our conventional arms will protect us from attack by a nation-state. Recent history tells us that people are often ignorant of the consequences of their actions.
Just days before 9-11 the most effective general of the Afghan Northern Alliance was killed by a suicide bomber posing as a jounalist. The bomb was inside his camera. At the time I remember thinking that it had all the earmarks of an Al-Quida operation and wondering why the were wasting such resources on petty internal squabbles in support of the Taliban.
When 9-11 occured it all made sense. The Taliban had traded permission for that operation for the elimination of their greatest foe. Mullah Omar and his crew clearly had no concept of the hornet's nest they were about to kick. They were more worried about the Nothern Alliance than NATO. Clearly this was evidence of a complete disconnect from reality.
I do not believe that delusional people will understand that a nuclear attack on the US will go badly for them. People all over the world firmly beleive that they are the greatest warriors the world has ever seen. They fear nothing. Nothing except, perhaps, nuclear retaliation.
I, for one, am convinced that we must maintain a nuclear deterrent. It may or may not work to protect us from a nuclear strike. But if we unilaterally disarm while proliferation goes on we are just begging to get hit.
October 10, 2007 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nuclear arms reductions make sense, as many of the classic missions for them have gone away. Some of the targets, such as opposing strategic bases, are gone. In other cases, precision guided munitions with conventional (or kinetic) warheads can be as or more effective than tactical nuclear weapons.
I would be opposed to unilateral disarmament, if for no other reason than verification. Sorry about the typo in the title that I need an admin to fix, but here's my Wikipedia article that should be titled National Technical Means of Verification. I would also want to see, before any more significant reduction, a modification of the NPT so that Israel, India, and Pakistan are inside the big tent.
Especially without full-up testing, there are risks that older weapons either might not go boom when that is the intention, or they would be easier for a terrorist to divert, lacking all safeguards we now can define. For this reason, I believe R&D, and possibly manufacturing, needs to continue. Without the experience base of designing them, it will be harder to recognize proliferation.
I've heard that there is an informal agreement between the US (W53) and Russia to keep their largest weapons in storage, for possible use against an asteroid. This assumes that someone has gotten an idea how to use bursts to deflect, rather than just having us hit with lots of radioactive smaller pieces.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 10, 2007 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Impactor defense will depend on the details of orbit, lead time, and material structure. Techiniques include heating the surface, or pile of delivered ice, to generate a reaction drive. But if we get blindsided by a Hyakutake, which came straight at us and gave only a couple of months warning, blowing the comet apart may be the only choice. I'd gladly accept a bunch of small impacts over one whopper.
October 10, 2007 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
All details relevant indeed. Yep, the smaller ones are the lesser of two evils.
My impression is there are more nuclear options, and this is getting a lot more study than the MSM reports -- good way to get a panic, I suppose. One is whether the old Orion drive could get new life (I absolutely f*cking hate it that NASA appropriated that honored name for the Shuttle replacement.
Obviously, you have no air through which pressure waves could go. There's been a little discussion of trying to get solid materials between the bomb and the incoming, so you get a mass driver effect different from Orion.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 11, 2007 1:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
As a fellow SF traveler you probably read Footfall. There is also a book on the Orion project. It's a clever use of big bangs, but a waste of a scarce resource. I'd rather see a pulsed fusion drive using the concept (like the elephants).
Deflecting a loose rubble pile would be tricky, but that would be an asteroid with a long lead time. Comets are likely better cemented, not having been knocked around in the crowded inner solar system. With long lead times, ablation from irradiation would serve as reaction drive.
For last-ditch comet destruction, penetration would settle its hash. Even if the initial blast did not immediately break it up, the deposited heat would unglue it quickly, I'd think.
October 11, 2007 7:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
For those that don't read science fiction, these elephants weren't exactly Republicans.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 11, 2007 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Does suggest a political strategy, though. Just have to figure out what represents a ritual foot on the GOP's chest. Much evidence of herd behavior, after all.
October 11, 2007 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I now live in the Czech Republic. The proposed US radar base (with associated rocket base in Poland) is a hot topic here. Slightly over half of the population is against the base, and the villages near the proposed site are very strongly against it. (The site is a military range.)
I'm not entirely sure about it myself. On the one hand, Russians might as well realize that they are no longer the masters around here and they can't tell us what to do or not to do. This is an even stronger argument for the base in Poland, as Poles have extremely good historical reasons to dislike and fear Russia.
On the other hand... what are the bases really supposed to do? They are ostensibly being built to protect us from attacks by countries like Iran. Only a complete moron could believe that's the real reason. Clearly the bases are aimed against Russia. One can only imagine what the US reaction would be if Russia was trying to build military bases in Mexico! Americans would have a cow.
On balance, I think there are plenty of military bases around the world already and we don't need more.
I would welcome any insights into the real strategic significance of the bases in Poland and the Czech Republic from the US viewpoint (or at least the viewpoint of the people who want these bases).
October 11, 2007 9:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are several kinds of ballistic missile defense (TBMD). They vary in when they would intercept the missile: boost (powered going up), midcourse (traveling ballistically in space or upper atmosphere), terminal (in atmosphere coming down).
Most advanced, at this point, is theater BMD, typically from a ship (US or Japanese at present) with the AEGIS battle management system and antiballistic variants of the Standard missile. PAC-3 Army missiles also are viable for point defense; AEGIS can do more area as well as defense. Both are capable for terminal defense, and the naval system might be able to engage in boost phase if the launch is near a coast, such as North Korea's.
There is work, mostly US-Israeli, on defense against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, such as the Arrow, MTHEL, and even Skyguard (and related) systems.
The system here is considered National BMD, intended for "midcourse" intercept. While there has been a recent successful test, this system has not demonstrated the reliability of the TBMD systems.
NBMD for the US only would protect against a launch of a few missiles, perhaps by a rogue group or a very small state. Right now, it has 10-12 interceptor missiles ready to go. Russia could certainly overload it, and China probably could.
It remains unclear to me what reasonably likely attacker NBMD would protect against; I see neither North Korea or Iran anywhere near having operational ICBMs or IRBMs. A North Korean attack, at present, is more likely to be able to reach Guam or perhaps Hawaii, and the Alaskan radars wouldn't even see them to engage them. Curvature of the earth and all that.
There are several national defense things that I see as higher financial priority for the money in NBMD, starting with hardening the national electrical grid (against accident, natural disaster, or attack), the North American chemical industry (manufacturing, transportation, and some storage), et.
I see the proposal for these bases as senseless, because they would be useless against Russia, and it's too early and low-risk to make a major investment against Iran.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 11, 2007 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not being an expert, I certainly can't see anything wrong in your reasoning... but why then would the US want the bases in the first place? Is it just a boondoggle project? Could the radar base have some strategic significance? What's really the point?
October 12, 2007 2:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Boondoggle comes to mind, or as a means of hyping the danger of Iran. It hurts the sensitive relations with Russia.
While I am a very strong supporter of TBMD, but I opposed the Alaska installation other than as a technology test program -- and there was already a test facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the West Coast launch range. This is loonier.
It would have nothing to do with protecting Israel. Iran is too close to Israel for midcourse intercept to be meaningful, Israel already has PAC-3 for point defense, and is co-developing a short-to-medium range system, the Arrow, with the US. Arrow and Patriot are complementary terminal phase defense systems, as they engage incoming warheads at different altitude ranges.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 12, 2007 3:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Likely it's just a payoff to defense contractor supporters. A partial deployment keeps the program alive, and it's an easy sell even if pointless--who isn't for defense? (I except sensible folks.)
October 12, 2007 5:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect I can think of infrastructure projects that could employ most of those contractors, even the rocket scientists. It especially appalls me when the money here is not being spent on significant threats. The Ohio Valley Blackout of 2003 was a combination of natural disaster and human error. Hardening the electrical grid so that couldn't happen, and on an even larger scale, would cost about $30 billion, which was the budget for the Alaska installation.
Grid vulnerability was an unintended consequence of deregulating the electrical industry. When utilities and related companies are judged quarterly, if they can buy power cheaper than building generating capacity, they will buy power.
Unfortunately, the interconnection points were not really intended for more than occasional use. The biggest problem is that most transmission is AC rather than DC. AC makes perfectly good engineering sense within a utility, so it can be stepped down for distribution.
For interconnection, however, unless you have the phase and frequency of AC on both sides perfectly matched, you can get surges in either or both directions. Since DC doesn't have phase or frequency, that can't happen on a DC interconnect. Texas has insisted on DC interconnects, and they've had very little trouble compared to other areas.
Another area that could take up some contractor resources is securing the chemical industry. Why should a terrorist try to smuggle in chemical weapons when a relatively small amount of explosives could create a mini-Bhopal, or a bunch of them?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
October 12, 2007 5:24 AM | Reply | Permalink