Download Title XI Aff 2 7WK - Open Evidence Archive

Title XI – Nuclear Primacy
Notes:
This is an impact scenario to the shipbuilding advantage that is all predicated off
of the ability to increase naval capability.
Aff
1AC Nuclear Primacy
Contention ___ is Nuclear Primacy:
Expansion of title XI funding ensures increased naval capacity
Goure, 11 [Lexington Institute, Obama Could Create Jobs And Support Defense, Daniel, PhD,
http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/obama-could-create-jobs-and-support-defense?a=1&c=1171]
A less well recognized candidate for increased government investment that would create jobs,
improve infrastructure, remove impediments to economic growth and help national
security is the domestic shipbuilding industry. Simply put, the United States has always supported a domestic
shipbuilding industry and merchant marine on national security grounds. The centerpiece of this policy is the Jones Act, passed in
1920, which requires that vessels engaged in trade between two U.S. ports be American-built, owned and crewed. This is important
for national security because the Navy both acquires its support vessels -- tankers and supply ships -- from U.S. shipyards and uses
that same industrial base for overhaul and maintenance for its surface combatants. This
industrial base could not be
sustained on Navy funding alone, hence the need to support commercial activities such as
the construction of Jones Act ships.
The first thing that the President could do is provide continued funding for the Title
XI Federal Ship Financing Program. Title XI provides loan guarantees on contracts to build or overhaul
commercial vessels in U.S. shipyards. The guarantees can be employed to cover the production of any type of commercial vessel
including barges and offshore oil rigs. Title
XI encourages the maintenance of commercial
facilities and a skilled workforce that can also be employed in constructing and
maintain Navy vessels.
An even bigger boost to the nation’s economy and national security would result
from an administration decision to expand implementation of the Marine Highway
Initiative. The MHI is intended to accelerate development of waterborne shipping services thereby reducing congestion on land
as well as saving money since waterways shipping is extremely cost effective for the movement
of high volume and bulk freight. Because of the Jones Act, initiatives under the MHI that involve funding support
for the construction of carrier vessels would go to U.S. shipyards. The results would be a double boost to the
economy (ship construction and reduced freight costs), the creation of jobs and
support for national security. Mr. President, put more money behind the MHI.
Increased naval power is critical to maintain nuclear primacy and credibility
Vego, 8 — professor of operations at the Naval War College, former commanding officer in the former Yugoslav Navy and
former West German merchant marine (Milan N., “On Naval Power”, Joint Forces Quarterly, July 2008,
http://www.ndu.edu/press/lib/pdf/jfq-50/JFQ-50.pdf, Deech)
Blue water navies play a critical role in providing support to national and military (or theater)
strategy as a part of nuclear and/ or conventional deterrence. Credible nuclear deterrence is based
on adequate capability and the certitude that one nation can and will inflict
unacceptable losses on an enemy who uses nuclear weapons first. Nuclear-powered ballistic
missile submarines (SSBNs) are the most survivable component of the country’s nuclear
forces triad. During the Cold War, these submarines conducted extensive patrols in the Pacific and
Atlantic Oceans, in readiness to fire their sea-launched ballistic missiles. Seabased nuclear deterrent
forces continue to have an important role in the nuclear deterrence posture of the United
States, the Russian Federation, Britain, France, and the People’s Republic of China.
Loss of primacy leads to nuclear war – perception heightens the link
Caves 10 – John P. Caves Jr., Senior Research Fellow In The Center For The Study Of
Weapons Of Mass Destruction At The National Defense University, January 2010,
“Avoiding A Crisis Of Confidence In The U.S. Nuclear Deterrent,” Strategic Forum, No.
252
Perceptions of a compromised U.S. nuclear deterrent as described above would have profound policy
implications, particularly if they emerge at a time when a nuclear-armed great power is pursuing a more aggressive
strategy toward U.S. allies and partners in its region in a bid to enhance its regional and global clout. A
dangerous period of vulnerability would open for the United States and those nations that depend on U.S. protection while the United States attempted to rectify the problems with
its nuclear forces. As it would take more than a decade for the United States to produce new nuclear weapons, ensuing events could preclude a return to anything like the status quo
ante. The
assertive, nuclear-armed great power, and other major adversaries, could be willing to challenge U.S.
interests more directly in the expectation that the United States would be less prepared to threaten or deliver a
military response that could lead to direct conflict. They will want to keep the United States from reclaiming its earlier
power position. Allies and partners who have relied upon explicit or implicit assurances of U.S. nuclear protection as a
foundation of their security could lose faith in those assurances. They could compensate by accommodating U.S. rivals,
especially in the short term, or acquiring their own nuclear deterrents, which in most cases could be accomplished only over the mid- to
long term. A more nuclear world would likely ensue over a period of years. Important U.S. interests could be compromised or
abandoned, or a major war could occur as adversaries and /or the U nited S tates miscalculate new
boundaries of deterrence and provocation. At worst, war could lead to state-on-state employment of weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) on a scale far more catastrophic than what nuclear-armed terrorists alone could inflict.
Primacy is key to deter Chinese nuclear threats – it’s reverse casual – the U.S. will first strike Beijing
and China would invade Taiwan.
Lieber and Press 6 [Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press Lieber -- Associate Professor in the Security
Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Press -- Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and Coordinator of the War and Peace
Studies Program at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding. “The Rise of U.S.
Nuclear Primacy march/April 2006 – Foreign Affairs Published by the Council on Foreign Relations –
Copy of PDF found on:
http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/20060301faessay_v85n2_lieber_press.html?pagewanted=print
SMerchant]
This debate may now seem like ancient history, but it is actually more relevant than ever -- because the age of MAD is
nearing an end. Today, for the first time in almost 50 years, the
United States stands on the verge of
attaining nuclear primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the United States to
destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike. This dramatic
shift in the nuclear balance of power stems from a series of improvements in the United States' nuclear systems, the
precipitous decline of Russia's arsenal, and the glacial pace of modernization of China's nuclear forces. Unless
Washington's policies change or Moscow
and Beijing take steps to increase the size and readiness
of their forces, Russia and China -- and the rest of the world -- will live in the shadow
of U.S. nuclear primacy for many years to come. One's views on the implications of this change will
depend on one's theoretical perspective. Hawks, who believe that the United States is a benevolent force in the world, will
welcome the new nuclear era because they trust that U.S. dominance in both conventional and nuclear weapons will help
deter aggression by other countries. For example,
as U.S. nuclear primacy grows, China's leaders may
act more cautiously on issues such as Taiwan, realizing that their vulnerable nuclear
forces will not deter U.S. intervention -- and that Chinese nuclear threats could invite
a U.S. strike on Beijing's arsenal. But doves, who oppose using nuclear threats to coerce other states and fear
an emboldened and unconstrained United States, will worry. Nuclear primacy might lure Washington into more
aggressive behavior, they argue, especially when combined with U.S. dominance in so many other dimensions of national
power. Finally, a third group -- owls, who worry about the possibility of inadvertent conflict -- will fret that U.S. nuclear
primacy could prompt other nuclear powers to adopt strategic postures, such as by giving control of nuclear weapons to
lower-level commanders, that would make an unauthorized nuclear strike more likely -- thereby creating what strategic
theorists call "crisis instability."
U.S. – China war over Taiwan guarantees nuclear war
Glaser 11 [Charles Glaser – PHD from Harvard in International Relations Theory and International Security Policy -- Professor
of Political Science and International Affairs Director, Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University
“Will China’s Rise lead to War?” March/April 2011http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/zselden/coursereading2011/Glaser.pdf SMerchant]
The prospects for avoiding intense military competition and war may be good, but growth in China's power may nevertheless require
some changes in U.S. foreign policy that Washington will find disagreeable--particularly regarding Taiwan. Although it lost control of
Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War more than six decades ago, China still considers Taiwan to be part of its homeland, and
unification remains a key political goal for Beijing. China has made clear that it will use force if Taiwan declares independence, and
much of China's conventional military buildup has been dedicated to increasing its ability to coerce Taiwan and reducing the United
Because China places such high value on Taiwan and because the
United States and China--whatever they might formally agree to--have such
different attitudes regarding the legitimacy of the status quo, the issue poses special
dangers and challenges for the U.S.-Chinese relationship, placing it in a different category than
Japan or South Korea. A crisis over Taiwan could fairly easily escalate to nuclear war,
because each step along the way might well seem rational to the actors involved.
States' ability to intervene.
Current U.S. policy is designed to reduce the probability that Taiwan will declare independence and to make clear that the United
States will not come to Taiwan's aid if it does. Nevertheless,
the United States would find itself under
pressure to protect Taiwan against any sort of attack, no matter how it originated.
Given the different interests and perceptions of the various parties and the limited control Washington has over Taipei's behavior, a
crisis could unfold in which the United States found itself following events rather than leading them. Such dangers have been around
for decades, but ongoing improvements
in China's military capabilities may make Beijing
more willing to escalate a Taiwan crisis. In addition to its improved conventional capabilities, China is
modernizing its nuclear forces to increase their ability to survive and retaliate
following a large-scale U.S. attack. Standard deterrence theory holds that Washington's current ability to destroy
most or all of China's nuclear force enhances its bargaining position. China's nuclear modernization might
remove that check on Chinese action, leading Beijing to behave more boldly in
future crises than it has in past ones. A U.S. attempt to preserve its ability to defend
Taiwan, meanwhile, could fuel a conventional and nuclear arms race. Enhancements to U.S.
offensive targeting capabilities and strategic ballistic missile defenses might be interpreted by China as a signal of malign U.S.
motives, leading to further Chinese military efforts and a general poisoning of U.S.-Chinese relations.
Only increased naval capacity can deter growing Chinese capabilities – action
now is vital
O’Rourke 12 (Ronald, specialist in Naval Affairs, “China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities – Background
and Issues for Congress”, Congressional Research Service, June 14th, 2012, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf)//AMV
One potential oversight issue for Congress, particularly in the context of reductions in planned levels of defense
spending that are anticipated as a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011 (S. 365/P.L. 112-25 of August 2, 2011), concerns
whether the U.S. Navy in coming years will be large enough to adequately counter
improved Chinese maritime anti-access forces while also adequately performing other
missions around the world of interest to U.S. policymakers. Some observers are concerned that a
combination of growing Chinese naval capabilities and budget driven reductions in the
size of the U.S. Navy could encourage Chinese military overconfidence and demoralize
U.S. allies and partners in the Pacific, and thereby destabilize or make it harder for the
United States to defend its interests in the region.137 Navy officials state that, to carry out Navy
missions around the world in coming years, the Navy will need to achieve and maintain a fleet of
about 310-316 ships of various types and numbers. The Navy’s FY2013 30-year (FY2013-FY2042)
shipbuilding plan, however, does not include enough ships to fully support all elements
of the Navy’s 310-316 ship goal over the long run. The Navy projects that if the FY2013 30-year plan were implemented,
there would be a shortfall in cruisers-destroyer throughout the 30-year period, and shortfalls in
attack submarines and amphibious ships at certain points during the 30-year period.138 As cost-saving measures, the Navy’s FY2013
budget proposes the early retirement in FY2013 and FY2014 of seven Aegis cruisers, the shifting into reduced operation status (ROS)
of two amphibious ships, and the deferral of some planned ship procurements.
Only incremental upgrades occur now – the plan is key to develop new systems
Lieber and Press 6 [Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press Lieber -- Associate Professor in the Security
Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Press -- Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and Coordinator of the War and Peace
Studies Program at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding. “The Rise of U.S.
Nuclear Primacy march/April 2006 – Foreign Affairs Published by the Council on Foreign Relations –
Copy of PDF found on:
http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/20060301faessay_v85n2_lieber_press.html?pagewanted=print
SMerchant]
The improvements to the U.S. nuclear arsenal offer evidence that the United States is actively seeking primacy. The
navy, for example, is upgrading the fuse on the W-76 nuclear warhead, which sits atop most U.S. submarinelaunched missiles. Currently, the warheads can be detonated only as air bursts well above ground, but the new fuse
will also permit ground bursts (detonations at or very near ground level), which are ideal for
attacking very hard targets such as ICBM silos. Another navy research program seeks to improve
dramatically the accuracy of its submarine-launched missiles (already among the most accurate in the world). Even if
these efforts fall short of their goals, any refinement in accuracy combined with the
ground-burst fuses will multiply the missiles' lethality. Such improvements only make sense if the
missiles are meant to destroy a large number of hard targets. And given that B-2s are already very stealthy aircraft, it is
difficult to see how the air force could justify the increased risk of crashing them into the ground by having them fly at very
low altitudes in order to avoid radar detection -- unless their mission is to penetrate a highly sophisticated air defense
network such as Russia's or, perhaps in the future, China's. During the Cold War, one explanation for the development of
the nuclear arms race was that the rival military services' competition for budget share drove them to build ever more
nuclear weapons. But the
United States today is not achieving primacy by buying big-ticket
platforms such as new SSBNs, bombers, or ICBMs. Current modernization programs involve
incremental improvements to existing systems. The recycling of warheads and reentry vehicles from
the air force's retired MX missiles (there are even reports that extra MX warheads may be put on navy submarinelaunched missiles) is the sort of efficient use of resources that does not fit a theory based on parochial competition for
increased funding. Rather than reflect organizational resource battles, these steps look like a coordinated set of programs
to enhance the United States' nuclear first-strike capabilities. Some may wonder whether U.S. nuclear modernization
efforts are actually designed with terrorists or rogue states in mind. Given the United States' ongoing war on terror, and
the continuing U.S. interest in destroying deeply buried bunkers (reflected in the Bush administration's efforts to develop
new nuclear weapons to destroy underground targets), one might assume that the W-76 upgrades are designed to be used
against targets such as rogue states' arsenals of weapons of mass destruction or terrorists holed up in caves. But this
explanation does not add up. The United States already has more than a thousand nuclear warheads capable of attacking
bunkers or caves. If the United States' nuclear modernization were really aimed at rogue states or terrorists, the country's
nuclear force would not need the additional thousand ground-burst warheads it will gain from the W-76 modernization
program. The current and future U.S. nuclear force, in other words, seems designed to carry out a preemptive disarming
strike against Russia or China.
Primacy is key to dissuade other countries from escalating – capabilities can
solve all nuclear impacts
Lieber & Press 9 - Keir A. Lieber, Assistant Professor Of Political Science At The University Of Notre Dame, And Daryl G.
Press, Associate Professor Of Political Science At The University Of Pennsylvania, November-December 2009, “The Nukes We
Need: Preserving The American Deterrent,” Foreign Affairs, p. 50-51 SMerchant
Counterforce capabilities should make adversaries expect that escalating a
conventional war will lead to a disarming counter, not a cease-fire. Beyond deterrence, these
capabilities will provide a more humane means of protecting allies who are threatened by
nuclear attack and give U.S. leaders the ability to pursue regime change if an adversary acts
in a truly egregious fashion. Moreover, some danger of escalation is unavoidable because the style of U.S. conventional operations
will inevitably blind, rattle, and confuse U.S. adversaries.
If the United States has powerful counterforce
tools, these may dissuade its enemies from escalating in desperate times, and U.S.
leaders would have a much more acceptable option if deterrence fails. The nuclear
forces the United States builds today must be able to act as a reliable deterrent, even in
much darker times. Many of those who recommend a much smaller U.S. nuclear arsenal —and
assign little importance to a nuclear counterforce option—fail to consider the great difficulties of
maintaining deterrence during conventional wars. The U.S. nuclear arsenal should
retain sufficient counterforce capabilities to make adversaries analyze very carefully
before threatening to use, putting on alert, or actually using a nuclear weapon. Any
nuclear arsenal should also give U.S. leaders options they can stomach employing in these high-risk crises. Without credible
and effective options for responding to attacks on allies or U.S. forces, the United
States will have difficulty deterring such attacks. Unless the United States maintains
potent counterforce capabilities, U.S. adversaries may conclude—perhaps correctly—that
the United States’ strategic positions abroad rest largely on a bluff.
Seabasing solves rapid marine response
Hanlon 4 – General Edward Hanlon, US Marine Corps. Feb 26, 2004. FDCH
Testimony.
The inherent mobility, security, and flexibility Sea
Strike describes the naval capabilities to project
dominant and decisive offensive power from the sea in support of joint objectives. These
capabilities include and integrate long-range, precise aircraft and missile fires: largevolume covert strike capability: high-tempo decisive maneuver by Marine Air Ground
Task Forces: Naval Surface Fire Support (NSFS): maritime pecial operations: and
information operations to capitalize on the strategic agilitv. operational maneuverability,
precise weapons employment, battlespace influence capabilities and persistent
sustainment of naval forces. Transformational Sea Strike capabilities are Deliberate and Time Sensitive Strike, and
Marine Air Ground Task Force Ship-To-Objective Maneuver. The Short Take- Off and Vertical Landing Joint Strike Fighter, as well
as the afore-mentioned EFV. MV-22. and CH-53X. all play a significant role in achieving these capabilities. Our triad of fire support
systems - the Expeditionary Fire Support System, the Lightweight 155. and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) also are key to our Sea Strike success.
Sea Base describes the capabilities that allow naval forces to
exploit the maneuver space provided bv U.S. control of the sea. It includes those
capabilities that provide unimpeded mobility and persistent sustainment . Incorporating the
complementary characteristics of amphibious, maritime prepositioning. and critical connecting platforms. Sea Base
capabilities provide movement without the need for permission or infrastructure, and
logistics without fixed and Milnerable stockpiles ashore. The Maritime Prepositioning
Force (Future) platform ranks highest in our requirements for achieving these capabilities.
Along with the LPD-17 and LHA(R) amphibious assault ships, advanced fast sealift ships such as the T-AKE Auxiliary Cargo and
Ammunition ships, and high speed connectors, the MPFfF)
provides the needed basis for our future Sea
Base capabilities. FORCEnet. as the integral naval component of the DoD-wide Internet Protocol-based advanced network,
will provide the open architecture and building blocks that integrate sensors, networks, decision aids, weapons, warriors, and
supporting systems into a highly adaptive, human-centric, comprehensive system that operates from seabed to space and from sea to
land. FORCEnet is the enabler for functional capabilities across each of the other three pillars. Our fumre command and control
systems, such as the Common Aviation Command and Control System and the Unit Operations Center, along with advanced
communications systems such as the Joint Tactical Radio System, will move us toward a truly integrated C2 architecture.
Organizational Concepts
XT: Plan Solves Naval Heg
The Navy is a critical element of American leadership – loss of leadership
leads to a laundry list of impacts
Cropsey 10 (Seth, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, former deputy undersecretary of the Navy (1984-1990), “The US Navy in
Distress, Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group, Vol. 34, No. 1, January 2010,
http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/Cropsey_US_Navy_In_Distress.pdf)//AMV
The size, shape, and strategy of the US Navy are a critical element of America’s position
as the world’s great power. Our ability to protect or rend asunder the globe’s ocean-going
lines of communication is inseparable from our position as the world’s great power. But very
few outside a small community of naval officers and selected military/foreign policy analysts appreciate the strategic results of
American seapower’s slow but steady diminution. The
eventual impact of this weakening includes, but is not
limited to, a major shift of power away from American influence in Asia; the shattering
of such key maritime alliances and partnerships as those we currently maintain with
Australia, India, Japan, and Singapore; the rise of China as a hegemonic power; a
debilitating loss in America’s ability to shape the future global strategic environment; and
a powerful reinforcement of the perception that the United States is in decline. Globally,
the continued attrition of US naval force also means a serious threat to the security of the
world’s sea lines of communication and the choke points – such as the Straits of Hormuz – through
which pass an increasing volume of global commerce, the departure of a visible and
stabilizing American presence from allied ports as well as potential worldwide
flashpoints, and the international perception that the United States is abandoning the
critical element of military capability that undergirded the world system American policy
has sought for over a century, seapower. The consequences of a much diminished US
fleet are complemented by the American public’s ignorance of them, the slow yet steady pace of
naval deterioration, and the increasing time and dismayingly large resources needed to recoup seapower surrendered slowly over
decades.
XT: Nuke Primacy Dissuades China
Primacy prevents a war with China
Lieber and Press 7 [Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press Lieber -- Associate Professor in the Security
Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Press -- Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and Coordinator of the War and Peace
Studies Program at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding. “Superiority Complex”
July/August 2007 –The Atlantic Magazine
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/07/superiority-complex/5989/?single_page=true
SMerchant]
How do America’s growing counterforce capabilities affect this scenario? First, American
nuclear primacy
may prevent such a war in the first place. China’s leaders understand that their
military now has little hope of defeating U.S. air and naval forces. If they also
recognize that their nuclear arsenal is vulnerable—and that placing it on alert might
trigger a preemptive strike—the leaders may conclude that war is a no-win
proposition.
XT: Navy Solves All War
Naval power key to deter major power war – the large magnitude of the
impact demands national attention – outweighs probability
Conway et al 7 (James T., General, U.S. Marine Corps, Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gary Roughead, Admiral U.S. Navy,
Chief of Naval Operations, and Thad W. Allen, Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard, Commandant of the Coast Guard, “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st
Century Seapower”, October 2007, http://www.navy.mil/maritime/MaritimeStrategy.pdf)//AMV
Deter major power war. No
other disruption is as potentially disastrous to global stability as war
among major powers. Maintenance and extension of this Nation’s comparative seapower advantage is a key
component of deterring major power war. While war with another great power strikes
many as improbable, the near-certainty of its ruinous effects demands that it be
actively deterred using all elements of national power. The expeditionary character of maritime
forces—our lethality, global reach, speed, endurance, ability to overcome barriers to access, and operational agility—provide
the joint commander with a range of deterrent options. We will pursue an approach to deterrence
that includes a credible and scalable ability to retaliate against aggressors conventionally,
unconventionally, and with nuclear forces. Win our Nation’s wars. In times of war, our ability to
impose local sea control, overcome challenges to access, force entry, and project and sustain power ashore, makes
our maritime forces an indispensable element of the joint or combined force. This expeditionary advantage
must be maintained because it provides joint and combined force commanders with freedom of maneuver. Reinforced by a
robust sealift capability that can concentrate and sustain forces, sea control and power
projection enable extended campaigns ashore.
Nuclear primacy prevents an all-out nuclear war
Lieber and Press 6 [Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press Lieber -- Associate Professor in the Security
Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Press -- Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and Coordinator of the War and Peace
Studies Program at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding. “The Rise of U.S.
Nuclear Primacy march/April 2006 – Foreign Affairs Published by the Council on Foreign Relations
SMerchant]
THE SUCCESS of nuclear deterrence may turn out to be its own undoing. Nuclear
weapons helped keep the peace in Europe throughout the Cold War, preventing the
bitter dispute from engulfing the continent in another catastrophic conflict. But after
nearly 65 years without a major war or a nuclear attack, many prominent statesmen, scholars, and
analysts have begun to take deterrence for granted. They are now calling for a major
drawdown of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and a new commitment to pursue a world
without these weapons. Unfortunately, deterrence in the twenty-first century may be far
more difficult for the United States than it was in the past, and having the right mix of
nuclear capabilities to deal with the new challenges will be crucial. The United States
leads a global network of alliances, a position that commits Washington to protecting countries all over the
world. Many of its potential adversaries have acquired, or appear to be seeking, nuclear
weapons. Unless the world's major disputes are resolved--for example, on the Korean Peninsula,
across the Taiwan Strait, and around the Persian Gulf--or the U.S. military pulls back from these regions, the United
States will sooner or later find itself embroiled in conventional wars with nucleararmed adversaries. Preventing escalation in those circumstances will be far more
difficult than peacetime deterrence during the Cold War. In a conventional war, U.S.
adversaries would have powerful incentives to brandish or use nuclear weapons because
their lives, their families, and the survival of their regimes would be at stake. Therefore, as the
United States considers the future of its nuclear arsenal, it should judge its force not against the
relatively easy mission of peacetime deterrence but against the demanding mission of
deterring escalation during a conventional conflict, when U.S. enemies are fighting for their lives.
Debating the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is critical now because the Obama
administration has pledged to pursue steep cuts in the force and has launched a major
review of U.S. nuclear policy. (The results will be reported to Congress in February 2010.) The
administration's desire to shrink the U.S. arsenal is understandable. Although the force is only
one-fourth the size it was when the Cold War ended, it still includes roughly 2,200 operational strategic warheads--more
than enough to retaliate against any conceivable nuclear attack. Furthermore, as we previously argued in these pages
("The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy," March/April 2006), the
current U.S. arsenal is vastly more
capable than its Cold War predecessor, particularly in the area of "counterforce"--the
ability to destroy an adversary's nuclear weapons before they can be used. Simply
counting U.S. warheads or measuring Washington's counter-force capabilities will not, however, reveal what type of
arsenal is needed for deterrence in the twenty-first century. The only way to determine that is to work through the grim
logic of deterrence: to consider what actions will need to be deterred, what threats will need to be issued, and what
capabilities will be needed to back up those threats. The Obama administration is right that the
United States can
safely cut its nuclear arsenal, but it must pay careful attention to the capabilities it
retains. During a war, if a desperate adversary were to use its nuclear force to try to coerce
the United States--for example, by threatening a U.S. ally or even by launching nuclear
strikes against U.S. overseas bases--an arsenal comprised solely of high-yield weapons
would leave U.S. leaders with terrible retaliatory options. Destroying Pyongyang or Tehran in
response to a limited strike would be vastly disproportionate, and doing so might trigger further nuclear attacks in return.
A deterrent posture based on such a dubious threat would lack credibility. Instead, a credible
deterrent should
give U.S. leaders a range of retaliatory options, including the ability to respond to
nuclear attacks with either conventional or nuclear strikes, to retaliate with strikes against an
enemy's nuclear forces rather than its cities, and to minimize casualties. The foundation for this flexible deterrent exists.
The current U.S. arsenal includes a mix of accurate high- and low-yield warheads, offering a wide range of retaliatory
options--including the ability to launch precise, very low-casualty nuclear counterforce strikes. The United States must
preserve that mix of capabilities--especially the low-yield weapons--as it cuts the size of its nuclear force. DETERRENCE
IN DARK TIMES THE
PRIMARY purpose of U.S. nuclear forces is to deter nuclear attacks on
the United States and its allies. During peacetime, this is not a demanding mission. The chance that leaders in
Beijing, Moscow, or even Pyongyang will launch a surprise nuclear attack tomorrow is vanishingly small. But peacetime
deterrence is not the proper yardstick for measuring the adequacy of U.S. nuclear forces. Rather,
the United
States' arsenal should be designed to provide robust deterrence in the most difficult
of plausible circumstances: during a conventional war against a nuclear-armed
adversary. In the coming decades, the United States may find itself facing nuclear-armed
states on the battlefield. U.S. alliances span the globe, and the United States is
frequently drawn into regional conflicts. Washington has launched six major military operations since the
fall of the Berlin Wall: in Panama, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and twice in Iraq. Furthermore, most of the
United States' potential adversaries have developed--or seem to be developing-nuclear weapons. Aside from terrorism, the threats that dominate U.S. military
planning come from China, North Korea, and Iran: two members of the nuclear club, and one intent on
joining it. The central problem for U.S. deterrence in the future is that even rational adversaries will have
powerful incentives to introduce nuclear weapons--that is, threaten to use them, put
them on alert, test them, or even use them--during a conventional war against the United States. If
U.S. military forces begin to prevail on the battlefield, U.S. adversaries may use
nuclear threats to compel a cease-fire or deny the United States access to allied
military bases. Such threats might succeed in pressuring the United States to settle the
conflict short of a decisive victory. Such escalatory strategies are rational. Losing a conventional
war to the United States would be a disastrous outcome for any leader, and it would
be worth taking great risks to force a cease-fire and avert total defeat. The fate of recent U.S.
adversaries is revealing. The ex-dictator of Panama, Manuel Noriega, remains in a Miami prison. The former Bosnian Serb
leader, Radovan Karadzic, awaits trial in The Hague, where Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died in detention three
years ago. Saddam Husseins punishment for losing the 2003 war was total: his government was toppled, his sons were
killed, and he was hanged on a dimly lit gallows, surrounded by enemies. Even those leaders who have eluded the United
States--such as the Somali warlord Muhammad Farah Aidid and Osama bin Laden--have done so despite intense U.S.
efforts to capture or kill them. The United States' overseas conflicts are limited wars only from the U.S. perspective; to
adversaries, they are existential. It should not be surprising if they use every weapon at their disposal to stave off total
defeat. Coercive
nuclear escalation may sound like a far-fetched strategy, but it was NATO'S policy
during much of the Cold War. The Western allies felt that they were hopelessly outgunned in Europe at the
conventional level by the Warsaw Pact. Even though NATO harbored little hope of prevailing in a nuclear war, it
planned to initiate a series of escalating nuclear operations at the outbreak of war-alerts, tactical nuclear strikes, and wider nuclear attacks--to force the Soviets to
accept a cease-fire. The United States' future adversaries face the same basic problem
today: vast conventional military inferiority. They may adopt the same solution. Leaders in Beijing may
choose gradual, coercive escalation if they face imminent military defeat in the Taiwan Strait--a loss that could weaken the
Chinese Communist Party's grip on power. And if
U.S. military forces were advancing toward
Pyongyang, there is no reason to expect that North Korean leaders would keep their
nuclear weapons on the sidelines. Layered on top of these challenges are two additional ones. First, U.S.
conventional military doctrine is inherently escalatory. The new American way of war
involves launching simultaneous air and ground attacks throughout the theater to
blind, confuse, and overwhelm the enemy. Even if the United States decided to leave the adversary's
leaders in power (stopping short of regime change so as to prevent the confrontation from escalating), how would
Washington credibly convey the assurance that it was not seeking regime change once its adversary was blinded by attacks
on its radar and communication systems and command bunkers? A central strategic puzzle of modern war is that the
tactics best suited to dominating the conventional battlefield are the same ones most likely to trigger nuclear escalation.
Furthermore, managing complex military operations to prevent escalation is always difficult. In 1991, in the lead-up to the
Persian Gulf War, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker assured Iraq's foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, that the United States
would leave Saddam's regime in power as long as Iraq did not use its chemical or biological weapons. But despite Baker's
assurance, the U.S. military unleashed a major bombing campaign targeting Iraq's leaders, which on at least one occasion
nearly killed Saddam. The political intent to control escalation was not reflected in the military operations, which nearly
achieved a regime change. In future confrontations with nuclear-armed adversaries, the United States will undoubtedly
want to prevent nuclear escalation. But the leaders of U.S. adversaries will face life-and-death incentives to use their
nuclear arsenals to force a cease-fire and remain in power. THE CASE FOR COUNTERFORCE IF
THE United
States hopes to deter nuclear attacks during conventional wars, it must figure out how
it might respond to such attacks, and it must retain the nuclear forces to do so. The
most horrific retaliatory threat that the United States might issue--to destroy cities if
enemy leaders brandish or use nuclear weapons--is a poor foundation for deterrence.
First, this threat lacks credibility. Destroying cities would be a vastly disproportionate response if an enemy
used nuclear weapons against a purely military target, such as a U.S. carrier group at sea or even a U.S. base located away
from a major city (such as the U.S. airfields on Guam or Okinawa). During recent wars, the
United States has
labored to minimize enemy civilian casualties. It is hard to believe that Washington would reverse
course and intentionally slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians, especially if no U.S. or allied city has been
destroyed. Moreover, a retaliatory strike on an enemy city would not even achieve critical military objectives, so the
horrendous consequences would be inflicted for little purpose.
If an enemy used nuclear weapons, the
most pressing U.S. objective would be to prevent further nuclear attacks . Destroying one of
the enemy's cities--even its capital--would neither eliminate its nuclear forces nor even necessarily kill its leaders. Nor
could the United States respond to an enemy's limited nuclear strike simply by marching to its capital city to capture and
hang its leaders; that would leave time for more strikes on allies' cities. In such a crisis, the United States would need to
stop the enemy's nuclear attacks immediately. Of course, no one knows how a U.S. president would respond in such dark
circumstances.
It is possible that the United States would retaliate by attacking enemy
cities--fear or anger might prevail over reason. But that mere possibility is a perilous
foundation for deterrence. A credible deterrent must give U.S. leaders acceptable
options in the event an enemy were to use nuclear weapons. An arsenal that can only
destroy cities fails that test. The least bad option in the face of explicit nuclear threats
or after a limited nuclear strike may be a counterforce attack to prevent further
nuclear use. A counterforce strike could be conducted with either conventional or
nuclear weapons, or a mix of the two. The attack could be limited to the enemy's nuclear delivery
systems--for example, its bombers and missile silos--or a wider range of sites related to its nuclear program. Ideally, a
U.S. counterforce strike would completely destroy the enemy's nuclear forces. But if
an adversary had already launched a nuclear attack against the United States or its
allies, a response that greatly reduced the adversary's nuclear force could save
countless lives, and it could open the door to decisive military actions (such as
conquest and regime change) to punish the enemy's leadership for using nuclear
weapons. During the last decades of the Cold War, the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union were
too big to be completely destroyed in a disarming strike, and, in any case, their nuclear delivery systems were not accurate
enough to destroy large numbers of hardened targets. But the world has changed. Washington's potential adversaries field
much smaller arsenals. Meanwhile, U.S. delivery systems have grown vastly more accurate. MODELING THE
UNTHINKABLE To ILLUSTRATE the growth in U.S. counterforce capabilities, we applied a set of simple formulas that
analysts have used for decades to estimate the effectiveness of counterforce attacks. We modeled a U.S. strike on a small
target set: 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMS) in hardened silos, the approximate size of China's current longrange, silo-based missile force. The analysis compared the capabilities of a 1985 Minuteman ICBM to those of a modern
Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile.[1] In 1985, a single U.S. ICBM warhead had less than a 60 percent chance
of destroying a typical silo. Even if four or five additional warheads were used, the cumulative odds of destroying the silo
would never exceed 90 percent because of the problem of "fratricide," whereby incoming warheads destroy each other.
Beyond five warheads, adding more does no good. A probability of 90 percent might sound high, but it falls far short if the
goal is to completely disarm an enemy: with a 90 percent chance of destroying each target, the odds of destroying all 20
are roughly 12 percent. In 1985, then, a U.S. ICBM attack had little chance of destroying even a small enemy nuclear
arsenal. Today, a multiple-warhead attack on a single silo using a Trident II missile would have a roughly 99 percent
chance of destroying it, and the probability that a barrage would destroy all 20 targets is well above 95 percent. Given the
accuracy of the U.S. military's current delivery systems, the only question is target identification: silos that can be found
can be destroyed. During the Cold War, the United States worked hard to pinpoint Soviet nuclear forces, with great
success. Locating potential adversaries' small nuclear arsenals is undoubtedly a top priority for U.S. intelligence today.
The revolution in accuracy is producing an even more momentous change: it is becoming possible for the United States to
conduct low- yield nuclear counterforce strikes that inflict relatively few casualties. A U.S. Department of Defense
computer model, called the Hazard Prediction and Assessment Capability (HPAC), estimates the dispersion of deadly
radioactive fallout in a given region after a nuclear detonation. The software uses the warhead's explosive power, the
height of the burst, and data about local weather and demographics to estimate how much fallout would be generated,
where it would blow, and how many people it would injure or kill. HPAC results can be chilling. In 2006, a team of nuclear
weapons analysts from the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
used HPAC to estimate the consequences of a U.S. nuclear attack using high-yield warheads against China's ICBM field.
Even though China's silos are located in the countryside, the model predicted that the fallout would blow; over a large
area, killing 3-4 million people. U.S. counterforce capabilities were useless, the study implied, because even a limited
strike would kill an unconscionable number of civilians. But the United States can already conduct nuclear counterforce
strikes at a tiny fraction of the human devastation that the FAS/NRDC study predicted, and small additional
improvements to the U.S. force could dramatically reduce the potential collateral damage even further. The United States'
nuclear weapons are now so accurate that it can conduct successful counterforce attacks using the smallest-yield warheads
in the arsenal, rather than the huge warheads that the FAS/NRDC simulation modeled. And to further reduce the fallout,
the weapons can be set to detonate as airbursts, which would allow most of the radiation to dissipate in the upper
atmosphere. We ran multiple HPAC scenarios against the identical target set used in the FAS/NRDC study but modeled
low-yield airbursts rather than high-yield groundbursts. The fatality estimates plunged from 3-4 million to less than 700-a figure comparable to the number of civilians reportedly killed since 2006 in Pakistan by U.S. drone strikes. One should
be skeptical about the results of any model that depends on unpredictable factors, such as wind speed and direction. But
in the scenarios we modeled, the area of lethal fallout was so small that very few civilians would have become ill or died,
regardless of which way the wind blew. Critics may cringe at this analysis. Many of them, understandably, say that nuclear
weapons are--and should remain--unusable. But if the United States is to retain these weapons for the purpose of
deterring nuclear attacks, it needs a force that gives U.S. leaders retaliatory options they might actually employ. If the only
retaliatory option entails killing millions of civilians, then the U.S. deterrent will lack credibility. Giving U.S. leaders
alternatives that do not target civilians is both wise and just. A counterforce attack--whether using conventional munitions
or low- or high-yield nuclear weapons--would be fraught with peril. Even a small possibility of a single enemy warhead's
surviving such a strike would undoubtedly give any U.S. leader great pause. But in the midst of a conventional war, if an
enemy were using nuclear threats or limited nuclear attacks to try to coerce the United States or its allies, these would be
the capabilities that would give a U.S. president real options. GOOD THINGS IN SMALL PACKAGES As THE United
States restructures its nuclear arsenal and overall strategic posture, it should ensure that it has three distinct capabilities.
First, it still needs some high-yield nuclear weapons (such as those deployed on land-based missiles and in submarines),
although fewer than it currently possesses. If the U.S. military had to destroy an enemy's nuclear force in circumstances so
dire that collateral damage was not a major concern, these weapons would provide the best odds of success. They
maximize the odds of getting the target, albeit at the cost of enormous collateral damage. The United States also needs
conventional counterforce weapons. The U.S. military already fields precision nonnuclear weapons that can destroy
nuclear targets, and the Pentagon has wisely made conventional capabilities a key element of its "global strike" mission,
which seeks the capacity to hit any target anywhere in the world in less than an hour. Conventional weapons permit the
United States to conduct a counterforce strike without crossing the nuclear threshold, and without killing millions. To
illustrate the promise of conventional counterforce, we modeled an attack on 20 land-based silos using B-2 bombers and
bombs guided by GPS. If GPS signals were not jammed, an attack would destroy most of the silos and have about a 50-50
chance of destroying them all. The problem with conventional counterforce weapons is that, lacking the destructive power
of nuclear weapons, they depend on pinpoint accuracy. If an enemy can jam GPS signals near the target, the odds of
destroying all 20 silos with current bombs are essentially nil. In short, conventional weapons offer the ability to destroy an
enemy's nuclear forces with minimal collateral damage, although with only a fair chance of success. For the third leg of the
U.S. strategic force, the United States should retain the lowest-yield warheads in its nuclear arsenal and (if it has not
already done so) enhance their accuracy. If the low-yield nuclear bombs and cruise missiles, which reportedly use inertial
guidance systems, were even half as accurate as their conventional, GPS-guided cousins, they could match the
effectiveness of high-yield nuclear weapons while inflicting casualties more akin to those caused by conventional bombs.
Improving the accuracy of the United States' low-yield nuclear bombs and cruise
missiles may not be as simple as attaching GPS guidance systems. The Pentagon has been
reluctant to use GPS on nuclear weapons because adversaries might conduct intense GPS jamming near their high-value
targets or disrupt GPS transmissions with high-altitude nuclear detonations. But GPS may still have a role. The United
States has overcome local GPS jamming in the past. More important, the enhanced accuracy gained by having GPS
guidance during even half of a weapon's flight time--before the signal is lost--would be enough in many circumstances to
permit a highly effective, low-casualty counterforce strike. Whether the slight accuracy improvements come from GPS,
next-generation inertial guidance, or other technologies, high-accuracy delivery systems with low-yield weapons should
form the backbone of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. CONFRONTING NUCLEAR REALITIES CRITICS MAY object to such
calculations on the grounds that this approach evaluates the U.S. nuclear arsenal by measuring its capability to carry out
nuclear strikes when the real purpose of the arsenal should be to deter wars, not fight them. According to this criticism,
whether U.S. nuclear forces can destroy Chinese, North Korean, or (in the future) Iranian nuclear targets during a war is
criticism is incoherent. Deterrence
depends on the capacity to carry out threats. Retaining that capacity is not a sign that
the United States has moved beyond deterrence to a war-fighting posture for its
nuclear arsenal; rather, the capacity to execute threats is the very foundation of
deterrence. Of course, a deterrent threat also needs to be credible--that is, an adversary needs to
irrelevant, and planning for such contingencies is macabre. But this
be convinced that a retaliatory threat will actually be executed. If not backed by the capability and the credibility to
execute threats, deterrence is merely a dangerous bluff. A deterrent force should therefore provide decision-makers with
options they would conceivably execute if their redlines were crossed. Otherwise, allies will question U.S. assurances,
adversaries will doubt U.S. threats, and a U.S. president may confront an escalating crisis without any acceptable options.
**Neg
Primacy Bad
Primacy guarantees escalatory nuclear war
Eckel, ‘9. [Matt Eckel, BA in Political Science from McGill Universit, currently studying social science at the University of
Chicago. “Nuclear Logic,” FP Watch, http://fpwatch.blogspot.com/2009/10/nuclear-logic.html]
To their credit, Lieber
and Press do point out some credible objections to this course of action. In
note that given the current style of American warfare, which focuses on destroying
enemy air defenses and communications, and generally blinding and confusing them during the early stages of a war, knowledge
that the U.S. has the capability and doctrinal propensity to launch a counterforce
strike might actually increase the likelihood of a hair-trigger nuclear response at the
particular, they
start of a conflict. After all, if you have reason to believe that you're about to lose your nuclear ace-in-the-hole, you'd best use it.
Unfortunately, the
authors don't really respond to this criticism in any kind of a rigorous
way. They just note it, but then say the benefits are worth the costs. More to the point, though,
the authors have a view of nuclear weapons' role , and of U.S. foreign policy more generally, that is
expansive and dangerous. Of course, the United States must be theoretically capable of
fighting adversaries like Iran, North Korea and (at least in a limited capacity), China, but viewing such
conflicts as inevitable or even very likely has the danger of becoming self-fulfilling.
A large scale war, nuclear or conventional, against any one of those countries would be a
disaster for the United States. There are of course scenarios in which it might be the leastworst option, but American planners shouldn't make such conflicts their sole or
even principal consideration when configuring America's nuclear structure. Nuclear
weapons are as much political as they are military, and so their role needs to be viewed through a political lens. From that standpoint,
perceptions that the U.S. was planning to widen the role of nuclear weapons, not narrow
them, would likely trump whatever PR gains were achieved through an absolute reduction
in numbers. This would be especially true if the logic behind such an expansion was that posed by the authors: to ensure the
United States retains the capability to conquer other states. The fact, alternately comforting and irritating, is that a nuclear arsenal is a
very, very powerful tool for protecting home territory and ensuring regime survival. A regime with a functional nuclear arsenal of any
size can more or less ensure that it isn't bluntly forced out of power by foreign arms. Lieber
and Press propose that
the United States can leverage its technological advantages to avoid this reality, but that seems farfetched. They note, for example, that China has always fielded a very small nuclear arsenal, just enough to deter nuclear attack.
They seem to treat this state of affairs, though, as being static. I imagine that if the
Chinese began to seriously worry that the United States could launch a counterforce
strike against their nuclear weapons, they'd do precisely what the Soviets did and
expand their arsenal. Lord knows they have the resources and technology to do so. The same logic more or less works
with Iran. Assuming Iran goes nuclear, there will likely be a period in which their arsenal is fairly small and vulnerable to the kinds of
strikes the authors envision, but if the Iranians know that, I doubt it will stay small and vulnerable for long. The authors also speak of
using low-yield, airburst weapons for a counterforce strike in order to avoid large scale fallout and minimize the escalatory potential
of civilian casualties. If I'm in the Iranian leadership, I solve this by placing my nuclear forces near civilian centers, depriving the U.S.
The larger point is that
trying to attain and keep the ability to launch counterforce strikes against an enemy
arsenal would be quite difficult. There are just too many ways of countering that
capability that are comparatively easy and cheap. Furthermore, many of them
involve nuclear arsenals of mushrooming size (see Cold War, comically-large nuclear forces during),
which opens up a whole host of other problems. Rather than focus on nuclear
primacy, U.S. leaders would be better off recognizing that a world of nuclear
proliferation places limits on the most extreme options (conquest and regime change) in the portfolio
of Ameircan power. Adapting to that fact, rather than fighting it, seems like a more rational
way to go.
of that option. I'm sure Lieber and Press aren't the only ones who've considered this problem.
Nuclear primacy drives asymmetrical rivals and causes rapid instability
Craig, ‘9. [Campbell Craig, Professor of International Relations at the University of Southampton, where he teaches nuclear
history, U.S. foreign policy, and international political theory. “American power preponderance and the
nuclear revolution,” Review of International Studies (2009), 35, 27–4, British International Studies Association, p. 41-44
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FRIS%2FRIS35_01%2FS0260210509008316a.pdf&code=f492d0ee2d3d1e61ef
0a6e06d5ccf9fa. Merchant]
The three major factors employed by the Power Preponderance school stand alone and provide by themselves a persuasive explanation
of unipolarity and the absence of great-power balancing. A Power Preponderance case that incorporated the effects of the nuclear
revolution, however, becomes substantially more convincing, as it adds the vivid and apocalyptic spectre of nuclear war to the
structural impediments that Brooks and Wohlforth highlight. By excluding it from their analysis, Brooks and Wohlforth are able to
maintain a theoretical parsimony by focussing only upon structural factors and geographical realities rather than the unit level factor of
nuclear fear. It is questionable, however, whether this quest for parsimony justifies excluding a phenomenon that so clearly enhances
their case. Most
structural balance-of-power Realists – the main rivals to the Power Preponderance school –
accept the logic of the nuclear revolution, as do many scholars in other branches of IR, so they would
not be including a controversial factor that competing schools could easily attack. Moreover, the exponents of
Power Preponderance have identified themselves as ‘neoclassical’ realists, which means that they are more willing to take into
account the volition of leaders and states – unit level factors – than hard-core structural realists.52 By adding the logic of the nuclear
revolution to their explanation of unipolarity, the exponents of Power Preponderance would put forward a more compelling case
without sacrificing much theoretical parsimony or ceding ground to their intellectual rivals. The problem that nuclear weapons pose to
Power Preponderance theory, then, does not have to do with its analysis of the contemporary international system: the nuclear
revolution reinforces its main arguments rather than undermining them. Rather, nuclear
weapons present a
problem for the theory because they raise extremely difficult issues with respect to
the waging of an American foreign policy of Power Preponderance over the medium-term
future. The nuclear revolution is likely to make American foreign policy in a unipolar
world either unsustainably burdensome or unsustainably dangerous . In the conclusion of this
essay, I show why this is so. We have stipulated that the nuclear revolution has two general effects upon
unipolarity. First, it discourages would-be great powers from balancing against the US – this is
its main effect upon the perpetuation of unipolarity. Second, it gives smaller states reason to believe that
they can resist and defy American power, if they come to feel threatened by the US, by developing
small and invulnerable nuclear arsenals. It is this factor that poses tremendous
problems to an American foreign policy based upon unipolar preponderance. To explain
this problem, it is necessary first to consider what we might mean by instability, or disequilibrium, in a unipolar system. Wohlforth
has stated that American preponderance, ‘if Washington plays its cards right . . . may last as long as bipolarity’.53 It is extremely
important, in evaluating the salience of Power Preponderance, to examine this claim. In the long run, a new system could emerge to
replace American unipolarity – a return to bi- or multipolarity, a world government, or whatever might arise after a third world war.
This does not invalidate Power Preponderance: no theorist must demonstrate that his or her prediction is destined to obtain forever.
Over the medium term, however – say the next few decades, so that American preponderance lasts roughly as long as the Cold War –
unipolarity must endure if Power Preponderance is to be more than a description of the interregnum between one balance-of-power
system and another. In other words, if Power Preponderance theory is correct, then over the medium-term future there should be no
recurrence of a balance-of-power system, more or less irrespective of the foreign policies undertaken by the US or its main potential
rivals. Otherwise, unipolarity is a transient phenomenon and the Power Preponderance argument is wrong. Wohlforth has stated that
the US must ‘play its cards’ well if it is to manage its preponderance over the unipolar world successfully. Wohlforth and Brooks
elaborate on this point, suggesting that a heedless, unilateral foreign policy will make unipolarity unpleasant for the US, while a
cooperative one is the key to its success. ‘Unilateralism’, they argue, ‘may produce results in the short term, but it is apt to reduce the
voluntary help from other countries that the US can draw on down the road, and thus in the end make life more difficult rather than
less’.54 What they are saying here, to use more theoretical terminology, is that it is in the interests of the US to maintain equilibrium
in the unipolar system, to sustain an international setting in which nations are satisfied with and do not strain against US
preponderance. But if this kind of stability can be defined as unipolar equilibrium, what would a unipolar system in disequilibrium
mean? In
previous international systems, disequlibrium meant the unravelling of the
balance of power and a spiral toward conflict and war among great powers, but this
cannot happen in a unipolar system, because there is no balance and no other great
powers. Instead, unipolar disequilibrium would have to mean – there is nothing else
it could mean – increasing resistance by small states to a solidified and unchallenged
American preponderance, as a result of poor card playing by the Americans. Rather than accepting American
leadership and unipolar stability, small states could seek regional hegemony, refuse to cooperate on transnational problems, attack
American allies, and in general resist and defy American will. In short, a Power Preponderance system in disequilibrium might look a
lot like the contemporary Middle East. In
previous unipolar or hierarchical systems, dominant
states often used their preponderant power to crush such resistance.55 Today,
however, the stakes of waging war of this sort are radically higher. American
leaders, if they want to avoid the catastrophe of a nuclear war, will be unable
seriously to threaten recalcitrant states that possess small nuclear arsenals. These states
will therefore have some ability to reject and defy American demands, knowing that the US is unlikely to resort to war in order to
compel obedience. The
US might be willing to wage nuclear war against a large adversary
that appears to threaten its survival, but it is unlikely to do so against a small
nuclear state that will not sell it oil, or that harbours terrorists, or that disrupts the global economy. It might be
willing to wage a conventional war against a non-nuclear adversary for such purposes, though
the recent experience in Iraq casts even this into question. But it is very hard to imagine even a belligerent
American leader waging such a war when its outcome could be the nuclear
destruction of several American cities or even the cities of key American allies. The costs will simply dwarf the
benefits. America’s current and prospective inability to coerce small nuclear states
means that the slipping of its unipolar reign into the kind of disequilibrium we have
described could produce a nightmarish scenario for US foreign policymakers . Small
states like Iran or Venezuela, if they obtain nuclear weapons, could challenge American political and economic preponderance in the
Middle East or Latin America in ways well beyond what Iraq, for example, tried to do. Witnessing the freedom of action that small
nuclear arsenals provide, other nonnuclear states might decide to acquire bombs for themselves. A unipolar system out of balance
could lead to a spectacularly dangerous international order for the US, as more and more small states, including perhaps those with
unstable governments, acquire the bomb in order to challenge American preponderance in one way or another. The lesson is obvious.
In a unipolar system affected by the unique aspects of the nuclear revolution, it will
be in the basic interest of the US to maintain equilibrium, to avoid the acute dangers that a world
filled with recalcitrant small states would pose. Of course, any unipolar power would prefer equilibrium and stability to disequilibrium
and conflict. But in the nuclear age, the benefits of preserving order magnify tremendously, as do the costs of its breakdown. What can
the US do to avoid disequilibrium? During the Cold War, a Realist answer to this question was to solidify bipolarity and to emphasise
the perennial logic of mutual assured destruction.56 This sort of solution, though, is not available in a condition of unipolar American
preponderance, because there is no ‘partner’, with its own client states and alliance system, to cooperate with to manage a bipolar
world, and there is no bilateral condition of mutual assured destruction. Having no recourse to the mechanism of great power
cooperation to preserve stability, the US will have to pursue equilibrium purely by making it a specific objective of its foreign policy –
by developing strategies that would discourage states from turning against America and seeking nuclear weapons. It could try to
accomplish such a goal by the use of intimidation and fear, such as was implied by the Bush administration’s National Security
Strategy of 2002, but this approach has, by any reasonable reckoning, failed. A unilateral and muscular unipolar foreign policy runs
aground on the nuclear revolution, because the US, no matter how aggressively it acts, cannot prevent determined small states from
obtaining nuclear weapons and defying its will by means of force and intimidation, as the current situation in Iran, and in North Korea,
Therefore, the US,
if it is to avoid the dangers of disequilibrium, is primed to gravitate toward a much
more conciliatory and magnanimous foreign policy. To specify what this means in a contemporary
both suggest. That is a deep distinction between unipolar powers of the prenuclear era and the US today.
context, it will have far stronger incentives to deal with potentially recalcitrant small states in the manner of North Korea – multilateral
diplomacy and economic rewards – than it has done so far with Iran. In a more general sense, the US will have an equally strong
incentive to dissuade nations like North Korea or Iran from becoming recalcitrant in the first place. Because sticks do not work against
nuclear states, and have not worked even in the war against non-nuclear Iraq, the US will have to resort to carrots: to persuade wouldbe ‘rogue states’ to accept American preponderance and reward them for doing so. It will therefore have a compelling interest to be
perceived as a magnanimous superpower by all other states and especially those who possess or could readily obtain nuclear weapons;
to deal with transnational problems or regional conflicts that might embolden ambitious states to do something about them themselves;
and to provide security guarantees to vulnerable states, or states that successfully portray themselves as vulnerable. The problem here
is that in an anarchical condition of international politics, an American foreign policy of carrots, of conciliating small states and
projecting an image of unipolar magnanimity, is subject to infinitely elastic definitions. The failure of American magnanimity could
either mean the failure of the US to act magnanimously, or it could mean the failure of other states to appreciate its magnanimity,
which in anarchy amounts to exactly the same thing. The US could adopt what we might all reasonably regard as a generous foreign
policy today, but over time Americans could come to regard it as overly generous, other states could regard it as oppressive, or both.
Without a supranational authority to adjudicate its meaning, there is no way for any American government to insure that what it
regards as a foreign policy of carrots rather than sticks will be accepted as such elsewhere.57 Following this logic, therefore, if the US
is determined both to sustain unipolar preponderance and to avoid disequilibrium, a foreign policy of endless conciliation and
international commitments would seem to be its only course of action. In a world without nuclear weapons, a preponderantly powerful
US might have been able to enforce an enduring unipolar order by using its military superiority to threaten or beat recalcitrant small
states into submission, though Iraq has shown how difficult even this policy would be today. When small advanced states possess or
can quickly obtain small nuclear arsenals, this stick becomes very dangerous to use, leaving a policy of endless carrots as the likely
alternative. ‘Strong states do what they will; weak states accept what they must.’ The bleak Realism of Thucydides dissolves in the
face of nuclear weaponry. The
logic of the nuclear revolution simultaneously discourages small states from
balancing against the US and gives them a means of resisting American will. Accordingly, it
allows them to define for themselves whether they believe that the US is managing
the international system to their liking, rather than having to accept the American version. If the US wants to
maintain its preponderance, but at the same time avoid repeated, tense showdowns with recalcitrant small states, it will naturally drift
toward policies of accommodation and conciliation, especially in its relations with states that possess or can readily obtain nuclear
weapons and are dissatisfied with, or wish to exploit, American magnanimity. Whether it chooses this burdensome path, or it returns
to the exceedingly dangerous one of maintaining its preponderance by use of force and fear, cannot be predicted by Power
the nuclear revolution makes
unipolar disequilibrium a more dangerous prospect than Power Preponderance
suggests. As during the Cold War, it could lead to a future of unpleasant instability
underneath a stable international structure, but this time with only the US facing the brunt of discontent.
Preponderance theory or the logic of the nuclear revolution. What can be said is that
Asymmetrical second-strike capabilities make primacy ineffective and create
*high risks* of nuclear war
Calleo, 3 [David P. Calleo. Currently director of the European Studies Program and
Professor of The Johns Hopkins University.
Taught at Brown, Yale and Columbia. Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic
Studies, former research fellow at the University of Oxford. Past Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow. Ph.D., Yale
University. “Europe and America: Different Geopolitical Wavelengths,” Annual Foreign Policy Conference. Heinrich Böll Stiftung November 13th, 2003, www.sais-jhu.edu/faculty/calleo/DGAP.doc]
Military superiority is frequently vulnerable to what might be called the “Law of
Asymmetrical Deterrence.” In the Cold War, for example, despite the huge nuclear arsenals of the superpowers,
anyone else with a “second-strike” capability could have a reasonable deterrent with only
a few hundred missiles. Nothing has changed in that realm since the Soviet collapse – except that there are a few more nuclear powers.
Nuclear deterrence still seems a cheap way for the weak to counter the strong. This seems true of weapons of mass destruction in
general. Not only are they relatively cheap equalizers, but the
presence of a superpow er, actively exercising its
military superiority, is a great inducement for others to acquire these equalizing weapons.
Our current unipolar strategic doctrine aims not only to put down rogue states, but
to preempt any rising power that might threaten our predominance in any major part of the world. In effect, our
unipolar doctrine puts us not only in conflict with the Afghanistans, Iraqs, Syrias and Irans of this world – but
points toward conflict with China, Russia, and even Europe itself. These are conflicts that, if
pursued resolutely – in the name of unipolar hegemony – can easily carry a high
risk of nuclear war.
Primacy undermines mutually assured destruction which is key to avert
nuclear war
Blair and Yali 6 [Bruce G. Blair is the President of the World Security Institute. Mr. Blair is the author of numerous articles
and books on security issues including the Logic of Accidental Nuclear War and Global Zero Alert for Nuclear Forces. He is
presently completing a new book on U.S. nuclear policy. Chen Yali is the editor in chief of Washington Observer. She is also a
Program Manager of Chen Shi China Research Group based in Beijing. China Security, Autumn 2006, pp. 51 – 77 World Security
Institute http://www.wsichina.org/cs4_4.pdf SMerchant]
In their disturbing analysis of the growing strength of U.S. nuclear forces, professors Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press predict a
deterioration of the global security environment in spite of this seemingly positive trend. 1 By their calculations, the American nuclear
juggernaut now confers absolute nuclear superiority over Russia and China as well as lesser nuclear powers. The imbalance, they
contend, has become so lop-sided that the United States today could mount a surprise nuclear attack that would completely destroy
Russian or Chinese nuclear retaliatory forces – a first-strike capacity that dramatically overturns a long history of nuclear stalemate.
the weakness of America’s adversaries only undermines U.S. and
global security. The reason is that American nuclear supremacy removes the root source of
stability from the nuclear equation: mutual vulnerability. The cornerstone of stable
deterrence and political caution during the Cold War – mutual assured destruction
(MAD), has crumbled. The professors anticipate a consequent fraying of great
But in an ironic twist of fate,
power relations, and an increase in the likelihood of nuclear war. Primacy is a double-edged
sword that may confer advantage and court disaster at the same time. In some circumstances the United States may use it to advantage,
gaining coercive leverage over its adversaries in a confrontation (how much, if any, leverage is conferred by nuclear supremacy is a
key open question in the professors’ minds). In others,
the coercive impulse may backfire; the risks may
outweigh the benefits if American pressure triggers reactive nuclear alerting and
escalation in a crisis – increasing the danger of accidental, unauthorized, or hastily
ordered nuclear attacks. Overwhelming U.S. nuclear superiority, whether
intentionally exploited or not, will also exert pressure on America’s nuclear rivals to
invest heavily in modernizing their forces in order to reduce their vulnerability and
restore a semblance of nuclear balance. U.S. superiority and its efforts to preserve it
in the face of countervailing Russian and Chinese nuclear modernization thus
threaten to ignite a nuclear arms race, one that could last for a very long time in light of the wide and widening
American lead. Given the decrepit state of the Russian strategic forces and the small size and acute vulnerability of the Chinese
strategic arsenal, and the plethora of ongoing U.S. improvements to its arsenal, the professors estimate that a decisive U.S. advantage
could endure for a decade or more. The strategic capabilities ‘gap’ is too wide to be closed anytime soon.
Primacy leads to US first strike
Blair and Yali 6 [Bruce G. Blair is the President of the World Security Institute. Mr. Blair is the author of numerous articles and
books on security issues including the Logic of Accidental Nuclear War and Global Zero Alert for Nuclear Forces. He is presently
completing a new book on U.S. nuclear policy. Chen Yali is the editor in chief of Washington Observer. She is also a Program
Manager of Chen Shi China Research Group based in Beijing. China Security, Autumn 2006, pp. 51 – 77 World Security Institute
http://www.wsichina.org/cs4_4.pdf SMerchant]
Their thesis reaches the zenith of its provocation when it suggests that nuclear
primacy will embolden the
United States to press its nuclear advantage in possibly unthinkable ways. U.S.
leaders might try to exploit its nuclear superiority not only by trying to extract
concessions during a crisis, but also by actually launching a cold-blooded nuclear
attack against its nuclear rival in the midst of an intense crisis. The professors discount
significantly the power of the nuclear taboo to restrain U.S. leaders from crossing the fateful threshold. If crisis
circumstances grow dire enough, the temptation to try to disarm their nuclear
adversaries through a nuclear first-strike may be too strong to resist, they argue.
Primacy destroys international institutions
Ikenberry et al 9. [G. John Ikenberry is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, Michael
Mastanduno is a professor of government and associate dean for social sciences at Dartmouth College, and William C. Wohlforth is a
professor of government at Dartmouth College. “Unipolarity, State Behavior, and Systemic Consequences,” World Politics, Volume
61, Number 1, January 2009, p. Muse]
A second hypothesis, however, suggests the opposite. We
should expect a unipolar power to
underproduce public goods despite its preponderant capabilities. The fact that it is
unthreatened by peer competitors and relatively unconstrained by other states creates incentives
for the unipole to pursue more parochial interests even at the expense of a stable
international order. The fact that it is extraordinarily powerful means that the unipole will be more
inclined to force adjustment costs on others, rather than bear disproportionate burdens itself. Two of the
contributions below address these issues. Michael Mastanduno’s analysis of the global political economy shows that the
dominant state will be both system maker and privilege taker—it will seek
simultaneously to provide public goods and to exploit its advantageous structural position for
parochial gain. It enlists the cooperation of other states and seeks, with varying degrees of success, to force adjustment burdens
upon them. Jervis suggests that because the unipole has wide discretion in determining the nature and the extent of the goods
provided, its
efforts are likely to be perceived by less powerful states as hypocritical
attempts to mask the actual pursuit of private goods.
The impact to the collapse of multipolar global institutions is extinction
Feffer, ‘9. [John, Contributing Member/Researcher at Foreign Policy in Focus, “World Beat,” FPIF, Feb 17. Vol. 4 No. 7. Lexis.
Merchant]
The neoconservative movement thrilled to what it called the "unipolar moment." After the
Berlin Wall collapsed and the Soviet Union followed suit, the United States was the last superpower standing. America faced a choice.
It could use the unprecedented opportunity to help build a new international system out of the rubble of the Cold War. Or it could try
to maintain that unipolar moment as long as possible. The neocons preferred the king-of-the-hill approach. The Clinton administration
flirted with multilateralism. It came into office promising to support a range of international treaties and institutions. It of-fered to play
well with others. But this more robust multilateral approach ran up against the three gorgons of the immediate post-Cold War period:
Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda. Whatever the Clinton administration's commitment to multi-lateralism had been, these gorgons turned
it to stone. The administration fell back on what it called "Ã la carte multilateralism." That is, the United States would pursue
multilateralism when it could, but act unilaterally when it must.History is on the verge of repeating itself. After eight years of neoconservatives trying desperately to extend the unipolar moment, a new group is in the White House promising to change America's
relationship with the world. Yet, plenty of gorgons beckon: Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea. Will Obama's multilat-eral resolve turn to
stone or will his administration truly remap U.S. global relations? "The new president is off to a good start," writes Foreign Policy In
Focus (FPIF) contributor Ehsan Ahrari in The Making of a New Global Strategy. "He al-ready spoke to the Islamic world, stating that
America will deal with it re-spectfully and on the basis of pragmatism; he invited Iran to unclench its fist and initiate an era of
negotiations on the basis of mutual respect; and he ap-pointed George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke as special envoys for the
Middle East and South Asia, respectively. He sent Vice President Joe Biden to talk to the Europeans and to the Russians." The vice
president was indeed in Europe the other week, but he spoke out of both sides of his mouth on the issue of multi-lateralism. He
promised our European allies a "new era of cooperation." But he also warned that the United States would "work in a partnership
whenever we can, and alone only when we must," which sounded an awful lot like the Clinton ad-ministration's eventual default
position. But times have changed, argues FPIF contributor Hannes Artens. "These
aren't the golden 1990s, when
U.S. power was at its zenith. In this first decade of the 21st century, the capitalist West is facing defeat
in Afghanistan and is on the verge of 'the worst recession in a hundred years,' as British minister
Ed Balls put it in perhaps only slight exaggeration," he writes in Multilateralism in Mu-nich. "This combination will force the Obama
administration to stop cherry-picking issues on which it wants to cooperate and forging ahead on those issues it believes it can still
handle alone. Necessity will dictate a more pragmatic multilateralism, in which all sides humbly accept what is realistically possi-ble."
Are we thus witnessing the final end of the unipolar moment? China
is coming up fast. The European
Union's expansion has been accompanied by relatively few growing pains. Several
powerful countries in the South (particularly India, Bra-zil, and South Africa) are quietly acquiring
more geopolitical heft. Global problems like climate change and financial collapse
require global solutions, so we either evolve multilateral responses or we do a dinosaur dive into
extinction . Over here, meanwhile, the Pentagon is still maintaining the world's largest military force - but we have failed
to defeat al-Qaeda, we are quagmired in Afghanistan, and all of our nuclear
weapons have done little to prevent North Korea from entering the nuclear club. The
global recession is hammering the U.S. economy, and we might finally see the end of the dollar's reign
as global currency. With the bank bailout, the stimulus package, the bill for two wars plus the Pentagon's already
gargantuan budget, the red ink is mounting. Debt has been the gravedigger of many an empire. I can hear the adding
machine totting up the numbers.
Primacy Fails
High chance of Russian retaliation
Yarynich and
Lieber and
**Also 1AC author indict (Their calcs fail – “mere chance”)
Starr 7 [Colonel (Ret.) Valery E. Yarynich is a Candidate of Military Sci., Professor of the Academy for Military Sciences. Named a
Visiting Associate Professor at California State University, San Bernardino, Steven Starr, Steven is an Associate member of the
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, MT at the American Society for Clinical Pathology, Global Research, March 4, 2007
Intelligent.ru, 2006 (Russian) - 2006-05-25 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4991 SMerchant]
Press also assume that the Russian Early Warning System will be completely unable to
reveal a massed American attack capable of destroying all Russian nuclear forces.
“A critical issue for the outcome of a U.S. attack [they say] is the ability of Russia to
launch on warning (i.e., quickly launch a retaliatory strike before its forces are destroyed). It is unlikely that
Russia could do this.” We believe this important conclusion demands more serious
calculations than the mere statement that “it is unlikely”. It's necessary to prove that the Russian
EWS will be completely incapable of revealing such massed American attack which is capable of destroying all Russian nuclear
forces. Admittedly,
the Russian EWS is now weakened. However, if it is able to detect
even a small part of the American attack, then it is impossible to rule out the
possibility that Russia will react by utilizing the policy of Launch on Warning (LoW),
i.e., launching its missiles before the attack is confirmed by nuclear detonations. The
number of nuclear warheads in a Russian LoW strike will be far more than in case of a pure LuA (Launch under Attack) variant. Thus,
the implied ecological admissibility of a nuclear strike, the procedural and technical
complexities of ordering and executing a surprise attack, and the assumed full
inability of Russian EWS together constitute too many assumptions to be built into
such a definitive definition of “Nuclear Primacy”. A more detailed and technical version of the Foreign
Affairs article can be found in the spring 2006 edition of International Security (see “The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of
U.S. Nuclear Primacy”). Yet even in this longer version of their article, a language of assumptions remains the characteristic feature of
and Press. For example, they write, “The Russian early warning system
would PROBABLY not give Russia 's leaders the time they need to retaliate; in fact it
the methodology of Lieber
is questionable WHETHER it would give them any warning at all. Stealthy B-2
bombers COULD LIKELY penetrate Russian air defenses without detection.
Furthermore, low-flying B-52 bombers COULD fire stealthy nuclear-armed cruise
missiles from outside Russian airspace; these missiles — small, radar-absorbing,
and flying at very low altitude — would LIKELY provide no warning before
detonation.” We think this isn't the language of serious proofs, especially on such an
important theme. Lieber and Press state that, “Our model does not prove that a U.S.
disarming attack against Russia would necessarily succeed. Nor does the model
assume that the United States is likely to launch a nuclear first strike. Even if U.S. leaders
were highly confident of success, a counterforce strike would entail enormous risks and costs.” We must ask: if this is so, then
how can they predict that “a surprise attack at peacetime alert levels would have a
reasonable chance of success”? As for our own assessment of the model, which is described in detail in
International Security, it is as follows: The authors have used an analytical type of model, in which
a studied process is imitated with the help of formulas. However, it is well known
among experts that creating a more or less correct description of a nuclear war
through an analytical model is a hopeless task. It is necessary to take into account
an enormous number of different factors. Even if someone is able to offer a formula
(or set of formulas) for each of these factors, it will be impossible to combine them as a
whole within the framework of such a complex process. In any case, such an “analytical
conglomeration” will be incredibly difficult to accurately evaluate. We believe a statistical imitation model (SIM) is the preferable
medium for such studies.
A2 Escalation Dominance
Even if the US achieves escalation dominance, unipolarity guarantees
emerging non-state WMD threats
Stephen M. Walt, ‘9. Professor of international affairs at Harvard University. “Alliances in a Unipolar World,” World Politics,
Volume 61, Number 1, January 2009, Lexis.
Another and perhaps related feature of the current system that accompanies the current
unipolarity but is not a necessary part of such a system is the rise of nonstate actors. This important area is still
lacking in satisfactory theories, and they may not even be possible given the diverse nature of the phenomena, which include Amnesty
International and Hezbollah. The relationship between nonstate actors and the state system is complex, with the former largely
depending on the latter and strengthening its members in some ways while weakening them in others. Nonstate actors increased before
the emergence of unipolarity but may now assume a greater role, or at least a higher public profile, because unipolarity
decreases the prominence of other state challengers. Nonstate actors are also likely
to focus attention on the unipole, both criticizing and seeking to influence it, which could
have the unintended consequence of underlining rather than undermining the unipole’s position. The nonstate actors
that have had the most impact recently have been terrorists. Even if many people exaggerate the
magnitude of the threat,32 it has shaped the current world yet is not a defining characteristic of unipolarity. The rise of terrorism is not
entirely divorced from it, however. The
enormous power in the hands of the unipole encourages
terrorism in part by taking so many weapons out of others’ hands, in [End Page 203] part
by making it the target of discontent almost anywhere, and in part by its intrusive
presence throughout the world.33 But it would be going too far to say that terrorism is an automatic concomitant of
this kind of system. Instead, it is largely the product of the particular circumstances of the current world, and indeed is a
significant menace only because it coexists with modern technologies, especially wmd.
Alt Cause – Missile Defense
Obama administration is scrapping missile defense – an element of primacy
Payne, ‘9. Rodger A., 1983 NDT champ @ Kansas! Previously a Prof @ Northwestern University, visiting research fellow at
Harvard's Belfer Center, Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and the Program on International Politics,
Economics and Security at the University of Chicago. “Nuclear News,” The Ducks of Minerva ,
http://duckofminerva.blogspot.com/2009/10/nuclear-news.html.
I'm beginning to think that a number of important people in the
Obama administration must have read the Keir
Lieber and Daryl Press piece in Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006, which explained burgeoning U.S. nuclear primacy,
and have taken seriously the potential risks of primacy . Just more than 10 months since George W.
Bush left office, the new administration in Washington has already taken a couple of important
steps to reassure other states that the U.S. is trying to reduce the risks. Duck readers may recall that Bill blogged about the LieberPress thesis two and a half years ago -- and then Dan mentioned a practical application in summer 2008. Also, I typically assign the
reading in my film class during the week we view "Dr. Strangelove." Nonetheless, I should briefly explain the argument for those
who are just joining the discussion. Essentially, the scholars claim that the U.S. is undermining classic notions of deterrence by
pursuing nuclear first-strike capabilities versus Russia, China and other lesser nuclear powers. They point to modernization of various
American weapons, as well as deterioration (or negligence) of potential rival arsenals. New burrowing weapons and missile defense
technologies contribute to the problem as they magnify nuclear war-fighting capabilities.
If Leiber and Press are
right, the U.S. might think the unthinkable in some future political crisis and attempt a "splendid" nuclear
first strike against a weaker foe -- including Russia. Even if the U.S. is not tempted to attack, potential
adversaries might believe that Washington could attack. Therefore, such a state might
think it has to "use 'em or lose 'em" and would thus be tempted to launch a preemptive
strike in a crisis situation. Nuclear primacy isn't good for crisis stability, even if its
advocates think that it might provide the U.S. with tangible advantages. Arguably,
policy signals and moves by the Obama administration reduce the risks of nuclear primacy
somewhat dramatically . Most prominently, several months ago, the President called out "clearly and with conviction,
America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." The U.S. is a long way from eliminating
weapons, of course, but embracing an
abolitionist goal stands in stark contrast to the idea of nuclear
primacy. Obviously, concrete followup would be needed to ameliorate the risks outlined by Leiber and Press. The signal itself
may have some value. More tangibly, this past month the administration announced that it was
scrapping the Bush-era plans to deploy extensive missile defenses in Europe. While the planned system was ostensibly
designed to reduce threats from Iranian nuclear missiles, most Eastern European (and Russian) foreign policy elites saw the defenses
as a way to reduce Russian nuclear threats. Missile defenses might be virtually useless against a large Russian missile attack, but they
arguably have much greater utility against a so-called "ragged" retaliatory capability that would exist after an American counterforce
attack. Again, Lieber
and Press specifically point to missile defenses as an element of
American nuclear primacy and there's good evidence that Russian genuinely feared US systems. Already, the
announced new missile defense plans look far less threatening to Russia. The replacement systems have the added bonus of potentially
being more effective against Iranian threats -- and the
Eastern European NATO partners.
altered plan has not unduly hurt relations with