"We are at the End of a Long Process of Having Conventional Weapons Displace Nuclear Weapons..."

Excerpts from Ivan Oelrich's "Missions for Nuclear Weapons After the Cold War," an FAS Occasional Paper No. 3, published January 2005.

Nuclear weapons are instruments of immense military and political power. Their existence affected every aspect of the Cold War. The appropriate roles of nuclear weapons are less clear now that the Cold War is over and much of the current U.S. nuclear force posture is extrapolated from the past. In spite of great changes in the strategic environment, the United States and Russia still maintain arsenals of over seven thousand nuclear weapons, most with explosive force equivalent to hundreds of thousands of tons of TNT, and most ready to launch within minutes...Even when the United States and Russia move toward the two thousand or so weapons envisioned by the SORT Moscow Treaty, the U.S. nuclear force structure will be a scaled down version of its Cold War arsenal.*

In addition, the United States, and probably Russia, are exploring new missions for nuclear weapons...

Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were suggestions to seize the moment and try for large reductions in nuclear forces. Other voices urged caution, pointing out that...changes in...Russia could be quickly...reversed. This reasoning led the first Bush and the Clinton Administration toward a strategy of "hedging," by deliberately allowing force reductions to lag behind international political changes until the changes were irreversible...

The current Administration developed a nuclear strategy that purports to leave Cold War thinking behind entirely and start with a clean slate; yet the resulting force structure is remarkably close to what would be required to achieve the Cold War mission of a disarming first strike against Russia...

The Administration has explicitly decoupled nuclear missions from specific threats and has focused on nuclear capabilities...[O]ne could imagine that in five years every potential nuclear threat from Iraq, Libya, Iran, and North Korea could disappear but, using the Administration's approach, U.S. nuclear requirements would not change...

"Using only the Administration's four goals, it is difficult to evaluate how nuclear weapons might undermine U.S. security, that is, it is difficult to evaluate nuclear missions' costs that can then be compared to benefits...In fact, using the goals and presumptions presented in the NPR never gets us on any path leading to a world where nuclear weapons are substantially de emphasized or de-legitimized...

[But in Oelrich's mission-by-mission assessment] A nuclear mission that actually encourages proliferation will get a negative "dissuasion" score. A mission that contributes to first strike instability will get a negative deterrent score...

This report's analysis finds that nuclear weapons can fulfill most (but not all) of the missions set out for them...The question therefore is not their effectiveness, but how useful they are compared to alternatives and what are the consequences of their development, deployment and use?

In most missions, the marginal improvement in effectiveness [of nuclear weapons] compared to modern precision guided munitions, is small...The marginal costs, whether measured along strategic, proliferation, or moral dimensions, are potentially huge. For the vast majority of missions considered for nuclear weapons today, they are not the weapon of choice...

Our examination of fifteen missions for nuclear weapons makes clear that some advocates of nuclear weapons have a tool and are looking for uses for it...

Of the fifteen missions evaluated here, only five demand nuclear weapons. [Overawe, virtual power and war termination missions] could depend on specifically nuclear use. [If China or North Korea used nuclear weapons against the United States he US we also might respond with nuclear weapons. But none of these four require the size and structure of the present force. Only] "the need to maintain a disarming first strike [against Russian forces] seems to drive the size, structure and deployment of U.S. nuclear force. This is also the mission that most tightly binds US force requirements to the size of the Russian arsenal.

If and only if, the United States and Russia can find some way to forgo this mission, most likely through agreed reductions and changes in the characteristics of their delivery systems, are further major reductions in the world's nuclear arsenals possible.

All of the remaining missions are potential nuclear weapons but conventional weapons can also fulfill each. We are at the end of a long process of having conventional weapons displace nuclear weapons."

* The Moscow Treaty (SORT) requires each side to reduce to "1,700 to 2,200" by YEAR from 5,968 strategic warheads today "accountable" to the US force 5,000 are counted in the Russian strategic force, though many are reported to be inoperable. Yet after the proposed reductions, Oelrich writes, "the U.S. nuclear force structure will be a scaled down version of its Cold War arsenal." We will be "left with weapons far beyond the numbers needed to destroy either country, so the treaty is of less practical effect than the numbers alone would suggest."

"Advocates of greater consideration of nuclear use do not want profligate nuclear bombing. Oelrich writes. "The central debate is between those who want it to be rare, and those who want it to be very, very rare. "Therefore the issue is whether the United States should maintain, or develop, nuclear weapons" for the few special cases where they seem advantageous, on the chance these extraordinary circumstances would arise?" (p. 8)

Why this situation persists - fear of it being part of the landscape?

"[F]ears of nuclear dangers have lost much of their political urgency. Many follow the easiest political and bureaucratic course, which is to keep what we have, so the nuclear force structure remains in place. Moreover, reductions in nuclear forces would not reduce costs much within the overall defense budget; so there is little financial pressure for reductions that could counter the present institutional inertia."

"Nuclear weapons are unique...Recent debate has tended to make nuclear weapons seem ordinary. An example is the controversy over "small" nuclear weapons, ones with explosive yields less than the equivalent of ten million pounds of TNT, or one-third the size of the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima and thousands of times larger than the conventional explosive Oklahoma City bomb. The recent promiscuous use of the term "weapons of mass destruction," to fold together nuclear explosives with far less destructive weapons, is also a source of confusion. The uniqueness of nuclear weapons means that their roles should be assigned sparingly. There are risks associated with use of nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation that are qualitatively different from any other type of weapon. When we calculate potential advantages of using nuclear weapons, we must balance them against these special risks."

	Nuclear Missions 1. Survive and fire back after nuclear attack against homeland (for retaliation/deterrence) 2. Survive and fire back after nuclear attack against allies (for retaliation/deterrence/assurance) 3. Survive and fire back after chem/bio attack against homeland (for retaliation/deterrence) 4. Survive and fire back after chem/bio attack against allies (for assurance/retaliation/deterrence) 5. Survive and fire back after CBW use in military theater 6. Deploying nuclear weapons to attack enemy nuclear weapons to increase their vulnerability, decreasing their value (to discourage their development in the first place) 7. Deploying nuclear weapons to attack enemy chem/bio weapons to increase thir vulnerability, decreasing their value (to discourage their development in the first place) 8. Damage limitation attacks against nuclear weapons in military theater 8. Damage limitation attacks against CB weapons in military theater 10. Damage limitation attacks against Russian/Chinese central systems 11. Ready to inflict damage after regional conventional attacks (or to deter such attacks) 12. Overawe potential rivals 13. Provide virtual power 14. Fight regional wars 15. Apply shock to terminate a regional conventional war. From: Missions for Nuclear Weapons after the Cold War