Eric S. Edelman & Franklin C. Miller
Introduction
Chairman Reed, Ranking member Inhofe, members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to address the challenges that the United States faces in continuing to deter nuclear war and preserving the tradition of non-use of nuclear weapons that has prevailed globally since 1945. Today the United States faces the most complex configuration of questions about nuclear weapons than it has ever faced since the onset of the nuclear age. Some of these developments are the result of quantitative and qualitative changes in the composition of the nuclear arsenals of the major nuclear weapons states, some from the aspirations of new or prospective nuclear powers, and some arise from the advent of new technologies whose interaction with nuclear weapons may create new uncertainties about strategic stability.
Deterrence and The New Global Environment: What’s New?
The most important new factor is the potential that the U.S. will have to deal with two near nuclear peers simultaneously. For the 40 years of the Cold War the United States was preoccupied with the threats represented by Soviet nuclear forces. Even after the People’s Republic of China tested a nuclear weapon in 1964 the dangers presented by its nuclear forces were mitigated by what most observers concluded was China’s reliance on a minimum nuclear deterrence strategy and then later by the Sino-Soviet split and the ability of U.S. diplomacy to seek better relations with each of the communist power than they had with one another. Today, as Chairman Reed noted last week “We need to seriously consider that we are entering a new, trilateral nuclear competition era” in which the United States and its allies must “deter not one, but two near-peer nuclear adversaries,” a challenge, we would note that it is unprecedented.[1]
The PRC arsenal which experts had estimated to consist of roughly 200 warheads for many years has expanded significantly. Today China disposes of roughly 350 warheads — but that arsenal is expanding rapidly. The most recent report of the Department of Defense on Chinese military power suggests that by 2027 China will have some 700 warheads enroute to nearly 1000 by 2030. Although projections of the growth of nuclear arsenals are always subject to uncertainty commercially available satellite imagery of missile silos being excavated in northern China as well as the PRC’s efforts to expand plutonium production certainly suggest that these projects are well rooted in reality. It is no wonder that STRATCOM commander Charles Richards described the growth of China’s arsenal as “breathtaking” and former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hyten called it “unprecedented” and suggested that prudence required the U.S. to plan against this growing threat.[2]
China’s quantitative and qualitative nuclear modernization entails not just the growing size of its intercontinental ballistic missile threat but the development of a full nuclear triad on a timeline that is much earlier than most observers anticipated and capabilities that could call “strategic stability” into question. The key developments include the PLA Air Force’s H6N air refuelable bomber armed with air launched ballistic missiles that are likely dual capable as well as the prospective development of the H20 long range strategic bomber. In addition, the deployment of the type 094 SSBNs armed with JL-2 SLBMs provide the PRC with its “first credible, sea-based nuclear deterrent.” Finally, the test last year of what seems to be a Fractional Orbital Bombardments system raises the prospect of a short or no-warning attack – an extremely destabilizing development.[3]
In addition to the buildup of its strategic nuclear forces the PRC is also augmenting its theater nuclear capabilities with the DF-26 dual capable intermediate range ballistic missile System (IRBM) which the DoD China Military Power report notes is China’s “first nuclear capable missile system that can conduct precision strikes, and therefore, is the most likely weapon system to field a lower-yield warhead in the near term.” Chinese writings suggest that “the most important type of future regional wars will be conventional conflicts under conditions of nuclear deterrence, deterrence and actual war-fighting will exist at the same time, and their function will be mutually complementary.” In light of the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine and accompanying threats to use so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons we need to consider whether the PRC will see its full suite of nuclear weapons as providing it with a powerful counter-intervention capability to deter the U.S. and its allies from defending Taiwan in a crisis.[4]
Russia, of course, remains today the only existential challenge to the United States because of the size of its nuclear arsenal. The extensive modernization of Russian nuclear forces over the past decade and a half, as well as the promiscuous Russian nuclear sabre-rattling (both before and after the February 24 unprovoked, premeditated Russian invasion of Ukraine) represent an especially important challenge for U.S. nuclear policymaking. Although the United States has argued that MIRVs are destabilizing, and we have de-MIRVed our own ICBM force Russia continues to modernize its forces with MIRVed missiles. New variants (both road mobile and silo-based) of the TOPOL-M missile are being deployed. The Russians are about halfway through the modernization of their SSBN fleet and the air leg of their nuclear triad features upgraded TU-95 and TU-160 bombers armed with the new KH-102 nuclear armed cruise missile that will serve as a bridge to the future PAK-DA next generation bomber that is expected to enter into production by the end of the decade.[5]
Russia, of course, also maintains a large stockpile of theater nuclear weapons – perhaps 10 times the number of similar weapons in the U.S. inventory. Russian theater nuclear forces are unfinished business of the Cold War – a fact recognized by the Senate in its Resolution of Ratification of the New START Treaty in 2010 which, as a condition of ratification, insisted that it is the policy of the United States to negotiate an agreement “to address the disparity between the non-strategic (tactical) nuclear weapons stockpiles of the Russian Federation and the United States.” Unfortunately, this disparity remains unaddressed and Russian threats to use such weapons in Ukraine underscores the importance of doing so.[6]
President Putin announced, with great fanfare in 2018, several exotic nuclear weapons including “a new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM); a nuclear-armed hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV); a nuclear-armed, air-launched hypersonic missile; a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile; and a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarine drone.” Most of these, like Russia’s theater nuclear weapons are not covered by the New START Treaty. The precise purpose of these new weapons remains unclear and some of them seem to reflect the pursuit of capabilities which the U.S. considered but decided not to pursue because they were too dangerous (nuclear powered cruise missiles). Nonetheless, they create additional uncertainty about “strategic stability” and must be addressed if there is to be any follow-on agreement to New START.[7]
The challenge of deterring two near-peer or peer nuclear competitors will require some rethinking about U.S. nuclear posture, declaratory policy, and potentially arms control. It does not, however, mean that we must reinvent the proverbial wheel – a theme to which we will return below.
In addition to the challenge of deterring Russia and China, the U.S. must also contend with the challenge of the growing DPRK nuclear arsenal whose diversification and sophistication is outstripping what earlier forecasts might have suggested. Open-source estimates suggests that the DPRK possesses 20 – 60 warheads (with the capability of producing roughly 6 warheads a year) although most observers seem to believe the number is closer to the lower than the higher end of the spectrum. That said, North Korea continues to produce fissile material and to diversify its means of delivery by developing ICBMs and SLBMs. Recently the DPRK adopted a new law on nuclear weapons that suggests it has developed an automated launch system that would enable a retaliatory strike even if Kim Jong Un were killed or incapacitated much like the old Soviet Dead Hand or Perimetr system. Recent activity suggesting an imminent nuclear test should serve as a reminder that the scale and scope of the North Korean nuclear effort will remain a persistent challenge for U.S policymakers.[8]
Whether or not Iran and the U.S. ultimately agree on steps to resuscitate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Agreement (JCPOA) that country’s progress enroute to a nuclear weapons capability continues apace. Even if the JCPOA is revived many of the limitations on Iranian enrichment capacity and capability will begin to expire within a few years and all the limits will end in 2030. At that point Iran will be a latent, if not declared, nuclear power. That could well be the death knell of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the non-proliferation order it created – arguably the most significant accomplishment of arms control and a crucial element of U.S. grand strategy since 1945. Russia, which has traditionally cooperated with the U.S. on non-proliferation policy, even in the worst days of the Cold War has recently shown its willingness to subordinate commitment to the NPT order to short-term considerations by blocking consensus at the NPT Review Conference to protest the final document’s reference to “concern” about the situation in Ukraine. A more proliferated world will mean even more challenges to nuclear deterrence, notably to the US but to Moscow and Beijing as well.[9]
The role of new technologies like artificial intelligence, hypersonics, and cyber capabilities may complicate nuclear deterrence in ways we are only beginning to understand. Cyber intrusions into nuclear command and control systems, for instance, could undermine important assumptions that underpin our concepts of nuclear deterrence like assured second-strike retaliatory capability. Although there is a lot of hype about hypersonic weapons (it is good to remember that ICBMs enroute to their targets travel at hypersonic speeds) it is also the case that combined with other technologies – like the Fractional Orbital Bombardment system that China tested in 2021 it could provide nations with a “decapitation” option that would also undermine many assumptions about deterrence and force governments to adopt very risky launch on warning postures. Russia, and now perhaps North Korea, may have incorporated automated launch systems into their nuclear forces. Artificial intelligence may be seen by some as an antidote to decreasing warning times, but it seems highly inadvisable to put our trust in computer systems to decide whether we launch nuclear war today. These kinds of question will require the kind of sustained intellectual effort that we undertook in the Cold War but largely abandoned after 1992.
Finally, as if all of the above challenges were not enough, we must also think through the potential of a combined Russia-China attack scenario. This may seem far-fetched to some but the historical record of alliances of strange bedfellows which emerge at extremely short notice (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact provides one example) means that it cannot be excluded and planning against such a threat could prove extremely difficult.
What is Old but Still Relevant?
Facing these daunting challenges some observers and officials have concluded that the lessons of deterrence learned during the Cold War are no longer valid and that new circumstances require a root and branch rethinking of deterrence including the novel challenge of simultaneously deterring two near-peers. Some argue that the United States should move away from the long-term tendency to focus on what potential enemy leaders value rather than counter-value strategies and must accept that extended nuclear deterrence for U.S. allies is unlikely to hold up in the future. Before we dispense with the hard-won intellectual achievements of the Cold War and discard approaches that successfully prevented the kinds of great power conflicts that made the first half of the 20th Century the most destructive in human history, we think it is worth reasserting some continuing hardy perennial verities.[10]
First and foremost, it is still the case that deterrence requires holding at risk what potential enemy leaders value. Doing so is very difficult because understanding exactly how foreign policymakers understand the world and reach judgments about it is intrinsically problematic. As Henry Kissinger has noted “deterrence seeks to prevent a given course by making it seem less attractive than all possible alternatives. It therefore ultimately depends on an intangible quality: the state of mind of the potential aggressor.” As a result, the United States must be able to show that even in the worst case we are still capable of inflicting unacceptable damage after having absorbed a surprise first strike. With two near peers this will have unavoidable implications for the size of America’s nuclear force.[11]
American treaty allies still rely heavily on the U.S. nuclear guarantee. The proof of that proposition was recently demonstrated by the universal opposition of our NATO and Asian allies to mooted changes in U.S. declaratory policy considered as the Biden Administration prepared its nuclear posture review. Moreover, undermining extended deterrence remains a clear objective of both Russia and China. As long as the U.S. hopes to maintain one of its most important comparative strategic advantages in the long-term competition with Moscow and Beijing it must still assure allies that we will defend them against conventional and nuclear aggression. The credible threat of nuclear retaliation against an aggressor will necessarily remain a part of the equation.[12]
Preliminary Judgments
These reflections lead us to some preliminary judgments recognizing that much additional thought must be devoted to understanding the requirements of deterrence under today’s unique conditions.
First, we must proceed with modernization of all three legs of the nuclear triad. This was actually a condition that the United States Senate attached to the resolution of ratification of New START in 2010 and the headlong modernization efforts by our two leading adversaries requires that the U.S. maintain a robust, redundant, survivable, responsive, controllable, visible deterrent force that is capable of penetrating enemy defenses to hold their forces and leadership at risk. We must avoid a situation in which our retaliatory force can only be used to threaten adversary populations. In order to be able to absorb a first strike and retaliate against an aggressor while also holding in reserve sufficient forces to deter the other near peer may, in the future, require larger numbers of deployed warheads than currently allowed under New START. In the midst of Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine this will undoubtedly be very challenging, and it is hard to be optimistic about the prospects for arms control in a period where Russian nuclear threats hang heavy in the air.[13]
We must be sensitive to both strategic and theater nuclear balances. Russia and China will seek to stress and undermine U.S. extended nuclear deterrence, much as they did in the Cold War by “seeking to de-couple” the defense of the US homeland from defense of our allies. We cannot allow adversaries to make nuclear threats to deter US counter-intervention in Europe or Indo-Pacific without the means to answer in kind rather than relying on coercive diplomacy backed by the threat of strategic nuclear forces. It is for that reason that we support the lower yield options developed in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review and believe it is unfortunate that the Biden Administration seems intent on killing the SLCM-N. We would urge the Congress to restore funding for that program whose utility has been attested to by both Chairman Milley and Admiral Richard.
Conclusion
Nuclear deterrence today faces very real and novel challenges, but that does not mean we need to start from scratch. There is much about what we have learned about deterrence that remains valid. “U.S. conventional and nuclear capabilities together must provide Russia and China with seamless and overwhelming disincentives to their initiating attacks or engaging in nuclear escalation in the event of conflict.” We must maintain a relentless focus on the survivability of US second strike nuclear retaliatory forces even if it proves uncomfortable from the point of view of arms control. And we must continue to focus on tailored deterrent strategies for a range of nuclear armed adversaries, Russia, China, (as well as potentially a combined Sino-Russian coordinated strike), North Korea and prospectively Iran.[14]
As the Scowcroft Commission noted some 40 years ago:
Deterrence is not, and cannot be bluff. In order for deterrence to be effective we must not merely have weapons, we must be perceived to be able, and prepared, if necessary, to use them effectively against the key elements of [an enemy’s] power. Deterrence is not an abstract notion amenable to simple quantification. Still less is it a mirror of what would deter ourselves. Deterrence is the set of beliefs in the minds of the [enemy] leaders, given their own values and attitudes, about our capabilities and our will. It requires us to determine, as best we can, what would deter them from considering aggression, even in a crisis—not to determine what would deter us.”[15]
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Opening Remarks, Franklin C. Miller, Senate Committee on Armed Services, Hearing on United States Nuclear Strategy and Policy, September 20, 2022
Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Inhofe, Distinguished Members of the Committee: it is an honor to appear again before this Committee.
The views I will be expressing this morning are my own. They do not represent those of any organization with which I am affiliated.
We live in a unique and unprecedented time: the United States needs to deter two nuclear peer potential enemies.
Professor Bracken’s comments notwithstanding (and I testified on the panel with him that day) we know how deterrence works: the United States needs to hold at risk what potential enemy leaders value most. Often we are tempted to assume Xi and Putin think as we do. But, as the Scowcroft Commission noted almost 40 years ago:
Deterrence is not, and cannot be bluff. In order for deterrence to be effective we must not merely have weapons, we must be perceived to be able, and prepared, if necessary, to use them effectively against the key elements of [an enemy’s] power. Deterrence is not an abstract notion amenable to simple quantification. Still less is it a mirror of what would deter ourselves. Deterrence is the set of beliefs in the minds of the [enemy] leaders, given their own values and attitudes, about our capabilities and our will. It requires us to determine, as best we can, what would deter them from considering aggression, even in a crisis—not to determine what would deter us.
As Ambassador Edelman and I stated in our written submission, the United States needs to be able to deter both Russia and China simultaneously: dictators can agree secretly to support one another and spring that on an unknowing world at extremely short notice. The Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 is a prime example. This is something we cannot ignore in our planning even if we believe the event is unlikely.
The forces we currently deploy under the New START treaty will not be adequate for this dual-deterrence task: the 1550 weapons limit was agreed to 2010, a period in time, when Russia was a competitor not a potential enemy ravaging another European state and threatening to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield, and China was not even a real part of the discussion. As the Committee knows full well, the world is very different now.
Our goal must be a secure and effective deterrent which is sized appropriately for the two peer task. There is no replacement for such a capability. Arms control treaties, if they provide for a secure and effective deterrent can help mitigate arms competition, but only if those treaties are observed. They are not a substitute, however, for the deterrent. And the prospects for arms control in the near future are dim. Russia is wholly untrustworthy and China is scornful. The Putin government has systematically, as a matter of policy, violated, either covertly or overtly, all of the arms control agreements it is bound by save one. And the Chinese government, believing that transparency and verification are signs of weakness, refuses to enter into arms control talks.
So I repeat, there is no substitute for a capable and adequate deterrent, which in the current and projected future environment requires an ability, simultaneously, to deter both Moscow and Beijing from attacking us or our allies. Our current modernization program is absolutely necessary. I believe, however, that in the out years it may likely require that the SSBN and air-breathing programs be augmented. And, as Amb. Edelman and I wrote in our submission, I believe a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile is important both for regional deterrence and for reassuring vital US allies.
I look forward to expanding on any of these thoughts in response to your questions.
Thank you, Chairman Reed and Ranking Member Inhofe, Members of the committee. I very much appreciate the invitation to appear before you, today, on this distinguished panel to talk about the challenges that the United States faces in continuing to deter nuclear war and preserving the tradition of nonuse of nuclear weapons that has prevailed, globally, since 1945. In deference to time and the fact that my colleagues and you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Inhofe, have already addressed many of the challenges that we face that are addressed in the joint statement that my colleague, Frank Miller and I submitted to the committee.
I would ask that you include that in the permanent record of the hearing. And I’m just going to limit my comments, really, to emphasizing one of the preliminary conclusions that Frank and I reached that echoes very much what my colleague on this panel, Madelyn Creedon, has said, [which is the importance of moving forward with the fully funded modernization of our nuclear forces].
This is something that the Senate in its wisdom, when it ratified the New START treaty in 2010, called for. And it is even more important today. in light of the facts, Mr. Chairman. that you and Senator Inhofe and my two predecessors on this panel have adverted to. I would like to make the point that we, frequently, hear that the modernization of US nuclear forces is either triggering or is participating in an arms race with the notion that it is an action,-reaction, parallel effort on both sides and that US efforts to modernize will only make things worse.
In fact, the historical record, I think, is pretty clear that, although there were elements of arms racing in the arms competition between the US and the Soviet Union in the Cold War, by and large, other factors on both sides drove the development of the nuclear forces that each side developed. And rather than the image of apes on a treadmill that is sometimes used to depict that, I think former Secretary of Defense, the late Harold Brown in the Carter Administration captured it best when he said, “When we build, the Soviets build. When we stop building, they keep building.” And I think that very much describes the situation we find ourselves in. today. The United States has actually been quite slow to modernize its nuclear triad. We’ve only really begun in earnest in the last few years in the face of this very, very dramatic buildup that we’ve seen on the other sides.
And it’s absolutely imperative, in order to sustain deterrence, that we maintain a force that’s flexible, survivable, responsive and has the range [needed to hold at risk what our adversaries value.]. And today, as Madelyn suggested, our margin for error because we have, essentially, only one program to modernize each element of our triad, as opposed to the multiple programs that our adversaries are fielding for different elements of their triad, we have very, very little margin for error.
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