Deterrence and Defense in Second Nuclear Age

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March 2009
Deterrence and Defense in The Second Nuclear Age

BY
ROBERT P. HAFFA, JR . R AVI R. HICHKAD DANA J. JOHNSON PHILIP W. PRATT
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CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................................1 INTRODUCTION: DETERRENCE AND DEFENSE ........................................................................................3 DEFINING THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE ...............................................................................................5 THE STRUCTURE OF THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE ........................................................................5 ACTORS AND CAPABILITIES IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE ......................................................7 THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE: LOOKING FORWARD ....................................................................11 DETERRENCE IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE ......................................................................................12 NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL : CONSTRAINING U.S. AND RUSSIAN NUCLEAR FORCES ..........12 NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEWS: U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY ...........................................13 TAILORED DETERRENCE FOR THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE .......................................................14 TAILORING DETERRENCE FOR THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE: MODERN NUCLEAR STATES .................................................................................................................................14 TAILORING DETERRENCE FOR THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE: ROGUE STATES, NUCLEAR ASPIRANTS, AND NON-STATE ACTORS ........................................................................17 DEFENSE IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE ...............................................................................................22 MISSILE DEFENSE IN THE FIRST NUCLEAR AGE ...........................................................................22 TAILORING BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSES FOR THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE .......................24 MISSILE DEFENSE IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE: HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH? ...................27 SYNCHRONIZING DETERRENCE AND DEFENSE IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE ..........................31 PREVIOUS EFFORTS ..............................................................................................................................31 OPERATIONAL SYNCHRONIZATION .................................................................................................33 ACHIEVING OPERATIONAL SYNCHRONIZATION ...........................................................................33 OPERATIONAL SYNCHRONIZATION: AN ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIO ..........................................34 CONCLUSION: DETERRENCE AND DEFENSE IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE ...............................39 ABOUT THE AUTHORS .................................................................................................................................41
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The United States, the other sovereign members of the nuclear club, and a number of would-be proliferators have now entered what has been described as the second nuclear age. This paper examines the deterrence and defense requirements presented by this new age, arguing for the value to be gained through their integration. Offense-defense integration will provide to national decision-makers timely and informed choices of security options needed to address the spectrum of conflict likely to unfold within the second nuclear age. The second nuclear age has some similarities with the first, but also exhibits marked contrasts. The security environment has transitioned from the first nuclear age, a bipolar, longterm competition between two technologically sophisticated states and their allies, to one of multi-polarity with emerging threats, unstable actors, and varied inventories of nuclear weapons and delivery means. In addition to the post-Cold War nuclear capabilities of Russia and China, new challenges are emerging from rogue states, fractured nuclear states, nuclear aspirants, and non-state actors. To deal with the uncertain environment and range of actors characteristic of the second nuclear age, the United States must revisit its policies and force structure underwriting the missions of deterrence and defense. The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) outlined a tailored deterrence strategy. This concept is built on the understanding that, owing to the range of actors present in the second nuclear age, Cold War deterrent theories, strategies and forces alone will not effectively address the new security environment. Tailoring nuclear deterrence for the future will require a careful mix of the strategies and forces proven in the first nuclear age, coupled with new policies and capabilities to meet the emerging threats from new nuclear actors. These will include modernization of the traditional nuclear triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and bomber forces to enhance their deterrent capability and credibility. The first nuclear age stressed the value of deterrence over defense. U.S. policy choices specifically rejected anti-ballistic missile systems to enable the stability engendered by the bipolar balance popularly characterized as mutually assured destruction. However, the new actors in the second nuclear age give little indication they will be similarly deterred. Therefore, the second nuclear age demands the development and deployment of layered missile defenses
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capable of meeting a wide range of threats and a strategy leveraging their capabilities. This system will require persistent awareness, global warning, tracking and handoff, and mobile, flexible, rapidly deployable missile defenses capable of intercepting inbound warheads in their boost, ascent, mid-course and terminal phases of flight. Critical to these new capabilities, and central to our argument, is a strategy to integrate and synchronize deterrent and defensive systems to meet future threats, thereby providing a broad range of flexible, integrated, and time-sensitive options for U.S. decision-makers. Offense-defense integration unifies and synchronizes the operational elementsintelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), command and control, layered missile defense, and a range of offensive capabilitiesto strengthen deterrence and defense across a spectrum of plausible contingencies. Fashioning a strategy that unifies and synchronizes the offensive and defensive elements of our military capabilities to provide a range of options is imperative to meet the challenges of the second nuclear age. Important steps toward this goal include:
The U.S. Department of Defense should use the opportunity of the pending QDR and Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) to sustain and strengthen the overall credibility and capability of the traditional nuclear triad. New investments should be directed toward increased awareness and understanding of emerging threats coupled with a prompt global strike capability to hold those threats at risk. A conventional intercontinental ballistic missile, either sea- or land-based, and a next-generation bomber are deterrent capabilities that should be called for in the next QDR and NPR and funded for fielding a decade from now. A layered system of global, rapidly deployable sea-, land-, air-, and space-based capabilities to defend against ballistic missiles in all phases of flight should be high on the list of the nations defense priorities. A distributed, automated, real-time, collaborative planning capability that is multi-dimensional (vertical through the strategic-operational-theater command structure and horizontal among geographic combatant commanders and joint force commanders) and multi-mission (encompassing all missions from ISR to missile defense and offensive options) needs to be implemented to support the operational synchronization of deterrence and defense. Sustained support for operational planning and exercise activities conducted by the combatant commands and the service components is required to implement operational synchronization and to familiarize key decision-makers with its capabilities.
This paper examines policies and programs needed to underwrite new approaches to combining deterrence and defense across the spectrum of conflict in the second nuclear age. Planning towards the operational synchronization of offensive and defensive forces will provide for a future in which national decision-makers are given a range of options to deter an enemy from striking U.S. or allied interests, or to defend in stages if deterrence fails. The second nuclear age demands a military strategy integrating the policies, practices, and capabilities of deterrence and defense.
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INTRODUCTION: DETERRENCE AND DEFENSE
In his 1983 book titled The Nuclear Future, Michael Mandelbaum posited that the nuclear future would be much like the past.1 The reason that the nuclear future would follow a middle path, he argued, was that the alternatives, disarmament and war, were either too difficult to achieve or too terrible to risk. This belief formed the basis of American defense policy and nuclear strategy during the Cold War. The delicate balance of terror existing between the two nuclear superpowers could be made less so through strategies designed to deter and forces fielded to enhance stability. A credible nuclear triad of strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and ballistic-missile launching submarines (SSBNs) was seen as a guarantor of deterrence and stability. Considerable investment was dedicated to that triad of forces throughout the Cold War to ensure there could be no single point of failure. There was not such a failure and, despite the fears of Fred Ikle and others, nuclear deterrence managed to last through the 20th century.2 It survived, it seems, owing to a condition termed mutual assured destruction (MAD) in which the shared vulnerability of the two nuclear superpowers created a sense of stability. The Cold War nuclear arsenals of the former Soviet Union and the United States were so conservatively planned and technically redundant that neither state could completely destroy the others retaliatory force by launching first, even in the worst no-warning casea bolt from the blue. The result of such a non-splendid first strike
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promised, in the worst case, to be the destruction of the aggressors population and industry after a counter-value response. The primacy of deterrence (currently defined by Joint Publication 1-023 as the prevention from action by fear of the consequences) over defense during the first nuclear age goes back to the earliest days of the Cold War and deliberations over strategic containment of the Soviet Union within the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations. Within the Kennedy Administration, the McNamara Pentagon calculated the contribution of strategic offensive and defensive forces toward reaching the objectives of assured destruction and damagelimitation.4 Secretary McNamaras inclination toward a strategy of assured destruction was initially strengthened by a 1964 report authored by Air Force Lieutenant General Glenn Kent concluding that a damage-limiting strategy mixing missile and civil defenses was far from cost-effective: the economic advantage remained decidedly with the offense.5 As the missile defense debate continued through the 1960s, additional studies by the Defense Secretarys Systems Analysis office added weight to Kents earlier thesis, arguing the Soviets could easily offset the effect of any plausible attempt to defend the U.S. from ICBM attack. McNamaras decision against deploying the Nike-X system designed to defend the U.S. solidified the dominance of deterrence over defense that was to last throughout the first nuclear age.6
Michael Mandelbaum, The Nuclear Future, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983. See Fred Ikl, Can Nuclear Deterrence Outlast the Century? Foreign Affairs, January 1973. Joint Publication 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, U.S. Department of Defense, 2008, http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/. Alain Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith, How Much is Enough, New York: Harper, 1971, p. 176. Damage-limiting forces included both offensive strikes and defensive systems. See Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983, pp. 320-25. Enthoven and Smith, op.cit. pp. 188-194. Subsequent programs to defend ICBM sites received greater support, and the ABM Treaty allowed 200 ABMs in two sites for both sides. However, the U.S. eventually fielded only one site, and soon dismantled it.
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The United States, the other sovereign members of the nuclear club, and a number of would-be proliferators have now entered what has been described as the second nuclear age.7 As we look to the nuclear future in this new age, can we remain as confident as Mandelbaum was that the world will not stray from a middle path between disarmament and nuclear weapons use? And should we remain as fixed in our beliefs and policy prescriptions regarding a policy choice between deterrence and defense? In a classic Cold War bifurcation of what he termed the two central concepts of general war strategy, Glenn Snyder warned that debates on national security policy were often inconclusive because participants argued from different perspectives: those of deterrence or defense. For Snyder, those differing premises were striking:
Deterrence works on the enemys intentions, while defense reduces his capabilities.
Deterrence is by definition a peacetime objective, while defense is a wartime value. Nuclear weapons are designed and deployed to deter, conventional weapons are planned for defense.
Despite describing the differences between deterrence and defense in the first nuclear age, Snyder was prescient in anticipating the needs of the second. Thus, he argued, We must find some way of combining their value on both yardsticks, in order accurately to gauge their aggregate worth or utility and to make intelligent choices among the various types of forces available.8 In examining the second nuclear age from a policy perspective, this paper argues that a prudent road towards enhanced deterrence and defense in the future begins by appreciating the necessity of integrating their value to enable timely and informed choices of national security options available along a spectrum of conflict populated by actors and threats very different from those of the first nuclear age.
See Fred Ikl, The Second Coming of the Nuclear Age, Foreign Affairs, January/February 1996; Colin S. Gray, The Second Nuclear Age, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1999; Keith B. Payne, Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age, Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1996; Paul Bracken, The Second Nuclear Age, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000; and the discussion in the following section. Glenn H. Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: A Theoretical Introduction, in Head and Rokke (eds.) American Defense Policy, Third Edition, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1973, p. 100.
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DEFINING THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE

Defining the second nuclear age provides a foundation for examining the roles of nuclear deterrence and defense within the post-Cold War world.9 During the first nuclear age, Cold War nuclear strategy was driven by clearly stated intentions and demonstrated capabilities of the two principals to ensure a bipolar nuclear balance of power. The second nuclear age features new actors whose possession of nuclear weapons capability is likely to lead to a destabilized international security environment.
A bipolar, long-term competition between two technologically sophisticated states and their allies. Large inventories of strategic nuclear weapons. Sophisticated command, control, and communications systems. Multiple phenomenological approaches to ensure accurate and timely strategic and tactical warning. Continuing communications through arms control negotiations. Crisis management procedures and mechanisms to avoid or contain accidental launches or weapons system testing. Relative transparency of fielded forces through arms control counting rules. Open discussions of nuclear doctrine and declared policy. Escalation restraint. Mutual rationality postulating that neither side would ultimately risk the destructive consequences of nuclear war.
The Structure of the Second Nuclear Age

Understanding the structure of the second nuclear age may best begin by comparing it to the first. At its core, the first nuclear age was a contest of strategy between the Soviets, the Americans, and their respective Cold War allies. Cold War allies. That confrontation was was confrontation bipolar in structure, featurstructure, featuring nation-states with allenation-states with allegiances or ties to one side of the ideological divide or the other. Nuclear weapons and their delivery systems were delivery systems were developed, acquired, comacquired, commanded, and controlled manded, and controlled with the goal of maintaining the goal of maintainstable andand credible levels ing stable credible levels of mutual deterrence. We can of mutual deterrence. We summarize the first nuclear can summarize the first age as being as being characnuclear age characterized by: terized by:
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The second nuclear age features new actors whose possession of nuclear weapons capability is likely to lead to a destabilized international security environment.
The stand-out feature of the second nuclear age is that the competition is no longer confined to two principal players. Its actors, extensive and growing in both number and nature, add a level of complexity and volatility to todays
On the role of nuclear weapons see George Schultz, Bill Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn (A World Free of Nuclear Weapons, Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007, p. A15). See also the response to that position by Harold Brown and John Deutch ("The Nuclear Disarmament Fantasy," Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2007, p. A19), Interim Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States of December 15, 2008, and the findings of the CSIS Beyond GoldwaterNichols report, "The Department of Defense and the Nuclear Mission in the 21st Century" (March 2008) authored by Clark Murdock. We find ourselves in agreement with those authors that the United States will have nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future.
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security environment making it increasingly difficult to assess the role of nuclear weapons and their implications for policy.10 Additionally, the rational actor model on which deterrence rested has been brought into question. A number of nations, some of which could be described as having rogue leadership at the helm, have either acquired nuclear weapons or demonstrated an interest in pursuing the capabilities needed to develop them. In addition to these countries, the rise of transnational actors suggests there are terrorist organizations, some state-supported and some not, actively seeking nuclear weapons not for deterrence but for use as weapons of mass terror. Andrew Marshall, the Pentagons long-time Director of the Office of Net Assessment, has cited the utility of thinking historically, within a timeline that represents the level of available technology from antiquity to today, about the number of people ten determined individuals can kill before being killed themselves.11 Given proliferation trends linked to global terrorism, that number is higher today than at any other point in history. Some of the actors in the second nuclear age benefit from what some have called a free-ride to nuclear know-how.12 Much of the technological underpinnings, strategic thinking, and planning of nuclear forces are open to actors no longer required to undertake difficult and expensive research and development. This free-ride enables actors of the second nuclear age to estimate whether the benefits of pursuing or expanding a nuclear weapons capability outweigh the risks. The consequences of this latent proliferation are several. First, any actor with modest technical and economic resources has the potential to exercise the option of going nuclear or, in some cases, to grow existing nuclear capabilities (although many actors, protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, have chosen not to or have disbanded ongoing developmental efforts). Second, identifying opportunities and actions to dissuade those actors from going nuclear have met considerable
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challenges. Finally, it will likely fall to the United States and its closest allies to offset or counter these nuclear choices. Acquiring a nuclear weapons capability in the second nuclear age (as it was in the first) is seen as a symbol of prestige and power it puts one front and center on the world map. This is particularly true among aspiring new powers; their perceived status within the international community might rise through nuclear empowerment. However, nuclear empowerment can be a two-edged sword: the level of investment put forth by an impoverished state or non-state actor to indigenously develop, steal, or buy nuclear weapons capabilities may be disproportionate when compared to their economic strength and political clout. To illustrate, the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then Foreign Minister and later Prime Minister of Pakistan, said of obtaining the atomic bomb, We will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.13 Given such sentiments, the costs associated with developing or acquiring nuclear weapons may easily displace the prudent planning and resources needed to manage them once they are in hand. Therefore, the extensive command and control infrastructure contributing to reliability and stability among players in the first nuclear age may not apply in the second. In times of crisis, a new member of the nuclear club lacking a strong command authority might too easily reach for a nuclear weapon. Lastly, a nations investment in nuclear weapons capabilities may also come at the expense and marginalization of its conventional capabilities. As a result, the second nuclear age has the makings of creating players with second-rate armies and navies relying primarily on a nuclear-based military strategy. During times of crisis, this may create a situation of escalating tensions, dangerous unpredictability, and limited response options. Although motives for acquiring nuclear weapons in the second nuclear age may not differ widely from
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See Paul Bracken, The Structure of the Second Nuclear Age, Orbis, Summer 2003, pp. 399-413. Marshall speaks in reference to the work of Yale economist Martin Shubik. See for example, Douglas McGray, The Marshall Plan, WIRED, February 2003. The recent tragic Mumbai terrorist attacks provide a baseline for assaults using conventional weapons. Paul Bracken, The Structure of the Second Nuclear Age. Foreign Policy Research Institute E-Note, September 25, 2003, http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20030925.americawar.bracken.secondnuclearage.html. From a 1965 speech to Pakistans National Assembly.
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those of the first, what does vary is the evolving complexity of how national interest in pursuing a nuclear capability translates to national security.14 In the case of nation-states, a countrys pursuit of nuclear weapons rests on the belief that its security will be enhanced. On the other hand, the notion of national security as a basis for acquisition among non-state terrorist networks has little meaning. Their motives are likely to be organizational image and pursuit of a radical agenda, rooted in a willingness to inflict as much destruction as possible to achieve their objectives.15 Thus, in the second nuclear age, the traditional security dilemma of international politics takes on a troubling dimension. Rather than threatening another nations security by enhancing ones own, a non-state actor seeks nuclear weapons solely to threaten the security of others.16 The characteristics of the second nuclear age, in contrast to the first, can be summarized as:
A multi-polar security environment involving nearterm and emerging threats and unstable regimes. Varied inventories of nuclear arsenals ranging from emerging capability to sophisticated threats. Collaboration among state and non-state actors on proliferating nuclear technologies and weapon capabilities. Weak or non-existent nuclear command, control, and communications systems. Limited communications channels among would-be adversaries. Little protection against accidental/rogue launch. Uncertain capabilities and intentions among many nuclear actors. Questionable doctrine well removed from traditional deterrence.
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Escalation and first-use as plausible options. The presence of non-deterrable actors. Domestic pressures to acquire nuclear weapons outweigh external pressures to discontinue nuclear weapon proliferation.
Actors and Capabilities in the Second Nuclear Age

The previous section offered a general overview of the second nuclear age, but this ages developments are best examined in greater detail through an assessment of key players. Todays nuclear weapons activities involve both state and non-state actors; some are responsible powers and others are not. It is the combination of these governments and entities and the challenges they present that defines the second nuclear age and that dictates policy and force planning implications for U.S. deterrence and defense.17
The Modern Nuclear State

The threat posed by a modern (peer or near-peer are other terms frequently used) nuclear state is most reflective of what the U.S. faced in the first nuclear age, and it continues to be one that cannot be ignored in the second. This case is represented by Russia and China. Russia at times looks strikingly reminiscent of the former Soviet Union.18 It rarely sees eye-to-eye with the U.S. on security issues, real democratic activity and open media are scarce, and it interferes in the domestic and foreign affairs of neighboring former Soviet republics by exploiting their dependence on Russian energy resources.19 These trends have been labeled in different ways, but the notion of Russian revanchism may not be far off the mark.20 Moscow appears bent on reclaiming its
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An excellent analysis of this subject may be found in Scott D. Sagan, Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons?: Three Models in Search of a Bomb, International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Winter, 1996-1997), pp. 54-86. Furthermore, examining the instances of states that have pursued a nuclear capability but have subsequently chosen to defer or stop their pursuit, may offer insights for deterrence and defense as well as for counter-proliferation efforts. Strategies of nuclear reversal and nuclear hedging are addressed in Ariel E. Levite, Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited, International Security, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Winter 2002/03), pp. 59-88. Harold Brown, New Nuclear Realities, The Washington Quarterly, Winter 2007-8, pp. 10-11. Unless the non-state actor is interested in increasing its own power at the expense of other non-state actors, e.g., Al-Qaeda by becoming the leading Islamic terrorist organization to which other terrorist organizations swear allegiance. It is not necessary to forecast rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons capabilities to define the second nuclear age; the current actors possessing a range of capabilities and intentions do that quite well. For a good review of contemporary social science research on nuclear proliferation dynamics see William C. Potter and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, Divining Nuclear Intentions, International Security, Summer 2008, pp. 139- 169. Certainly the comparison has been drawn recently given Russian military moves into the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. See Russia, Pledging to Leave Georgia, Tightens Its Grip, The New York Times, August 18, 2008, p. A1; and Stephen Sestanovich, What Has Moscow Done? Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008, pp. 12-28. Steven Woehrel, Russian Energy Policy Toward Neighboring Countries, CRS Report for Congress, RL34261, updated March 27, 2008, pp. 7-13. See for example, Richard A. Clarke, While You Were at War,The Washington Post, December 31, 2006, B01; and Paul Reynolds, New Russian world order: The five principles, BBC News, September 1, 2008 at http://news.bbc.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7591610.stm.
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strategic dominance and geopolitical influence lost following the end of the Cold War. In contrast to the United States policy of decreasing its reliance on nuclear forces, Russia is expanding its nuclear weapons capability, deploying more road-mobile and silo-based ICBMs, fielding both a new class of ballistic missile submarine and associated SLBM forces, and pursuing a new long-range bomber.21 Former President and current Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin has also stressed that work to field entirely new land-based systems beyond current Russian Topol ICBMs continues.22 Furthermore, Russia has repeatedly engaged in provocative military exercises involving nuclear assets, has forewarned the U.S. and its allies that it will target proposed European missile defense sites, and has threatened to withdraw from the IntermediateRange Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. All indications are that Russias modernized nuclear arsenal will remain a defining factor of its force posture.23 Therefore, despite the view suggested in the 2001 NPR that Russia was not a nuclear adversary to plan against, a preponderance of evidence argues that Russia will continue to prompt major considerations for U.S. nuclear strategy and deterrent capabilities in the second nuclear age.24 In this age, the United States and Russia no longer view each other as open adversaries locked in a battle for strategic superiority, yet diplomatic relationships between the two nuclear superpowers are strained.25 Within this semi-adversarial relationship, the two primary actors of the first nuclear age maintain large nuclear arsenals in various stages of readiness. Here, the second nuclear age remains remarkably reminiscent of the first.
A preponderance of evidence argues that Russia will continue to prompt major considerations for U.S. nuclear strategy and deterrent capabilities in the second nuclear age.
China is becoming a regional political and economic power with expanding global influence, raising concerns over its growing military power and rising space and defense spending.26 Much of Chinas strategic focus continues to be centered on its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan. It is Beijings official position that an independent Taiwanese state must be prevented at any cost.27 This statement implies that China deems escalation to nuclear war to be a credible deterrent threat in the event of a military conflict involving Taiwan. However, Taiwan is not Chinas sole security concern. China is also preparing its military for other contingencies such as conflict over resources and disputed territories.28
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Russia: Sevmash Launch of New Borey-Class SSBN Yuriy Dolgorukiy, Bulava Update, Moscow Krasnaya Zvezda, April 17, 2007. Translated in Open Source Center, Doc. ID: CEP20070417330001; Aleksey Nikitin, Who Will More Rapidly Obtain a New Generation Bomber, Internet Natsionalnaya Informatsionnaya Gruppa. Translated in Open Source Center, Doc. ID: CEP20070717358004. Putin Says Russia Developing Completely New Strategic Missile Systems, Moscow: Rossiya TV, October 18, 2007. Transcribed in Open Source Center, Doc. ID: CEP20070707950033. Another factor is the large number of tactical nuclear warheads Russia has retained, and the nuclear moves suggested in response to U.S.-supported missile defense in Eastern Europe, to include stationing nuclear weapons in Cuba or pointing nuclear warheads at Ukrainian territory. See Gabriel Schoenfeld, Russias Nuclear Threat is More Than Words, The Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2008, p. A11. The fact that Russia suspended observing the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty and announced the INF treaty no longer serves Russian interests adds credence to this conclusion. Stephen J. Blank lists several examples of American growing wariness about Russian intentions. See Blank, Towards a New Russia Policy, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, February 2008. See also Edward Lucas, The New Cold War, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the Peoples Republic of China 2008, p. 1. Xinhua: Full Text of White Paper titled Chinas National Defense, 2004, Beijing: Xinhua, December 27, 2004. Transcribed in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Doc. ID: CPP200412270000034. Annual Report to Congress, op. cit., p. 1.
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With those scenarios in mind, how is China modernizing its strategic nuclear weapons? Should China, for planning purposes, be regarded as a small modern nuclear state or a large rogue? China has at least ten types of ballistic missile systems either operational or in development, and is pursuing further SLBM deployments.29 Despite a professed no first use policy for its nuclear weapons, Chinas military leaders have occasionally indicated otherwise, particularly in a situation facing American conventional capabilities.30 A book published by the Peoples Liberation Armys Second Artillery, the division of the Chinese military that oversees strategic nuclear missiles, noted that a reduction in the nuclear use threshold be instituted during wartime as a deterrent to enemy conventional strikes on the mainland.31 In the second nuclear age, China, like Russia, may increasingly rely on its nuclear capability to underwrite its foreign policy objectives. In the case of modern nuclear states such as Russia or China, one must also acknowledge the less overt threats that may emerge from a large, complex, and potentially risk-prone nuclear infrastructure. These activities range from illicit technology transfer or leakage, to the inadvertent or unauthorized launch of a nuclear weapon. Prescriptions for future U.S. nuclear policy and strategic defense must recognize these myriad dangers.
sympathetic to various extremist causes are known to be present in sectors of the Pakistani military and intelligence organizations, raising the prospect that Pakistans nuclear weapons may fall into radical hands. Moreover, Islamabads historical antagonisms and conventional force shortfalls vis vis India, another nuclear power, illuminates a worrisome scenario in the event of a regional armed conflict. Additionally, high levels of political upheaval and domestic strife suggest that Pakistan may at best remain a fractured state and at worst become a failed one. While there is no obvious reason to consider Pakistan as antagonistic towards U.S. interests, there are serious concerns about Pakistans nuclear course, given its unpredictable future.
The Rogue State

If the previous cases are questionable regarding the actors nuclear weapons capabilities and intentions, the threat posed by a rogue state is highly unpredictable. North Korea illustrates this type of actor. North Korea claims to have demonstrated its nuclear weapons capability in a 2006 test. While it has been suggested that the demonstration may have actually been a nuclear device that misfired, a later test might prove more successful. Coupled with that consideration is North Koreas long record of developing WMD and fielding ballistic missiles capable of striking U.S. soil.33 While a North Korean nuclear weapons capability has been dismissed as simply a powerful diplomatic tool for its rogue leadership, its potential for employment is real. Pyongyang has historically leveraged its nuclear activities through a string of broken international commitments; there is little evidence to suggest a more transparent or reliable course. Even in light of North Koreas most recent pledge (and recantation) to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, its checkered past calls for continued U.S. wariness. Absent the verification that North Korea no longer poses a threat, holding Pyongyangs fledgling but potentially devastating ICBM force at
The Fractured Nuclear State

The fractured nuclear stateone that has achieved a nuclear weapons capability yet lacks the political stability to ensure its sovereignty and the security of those weaponsis one of the most worrisome prospects of the second nuclear age. Pakistan may be the greatest concern in this regard. Pakistans nuclear weapons complex is thought to be limited and distributed, however the reliability of its command and control of these weapons has been questioned.32 Radical Islamic elements
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U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2006 Report to the Congress, November 2006, p. 136. Joseph Kahn, Chinese General Threatens Use of A-Bombs if U.S. Intrudes, New York Times, July 15, 2005. The Science of the Second Artillery Campaigns, Beijing: Press of the PLA, March 2004, p. 394. David E. Sanger, So, What About Those Nukes, The New York Times, November 11, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/weekinreview/11sanger.html. Steven A. Hildreth, North Korean Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, CRS Report for Congress, January 3, 2007, RS21473. North Korea is thought to have enough plutonium to make between six to ten nuclear weapons. See Disarming North Korea, The Economist, July 19, 2008, p. 51.
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riskand defending against itis a prudent hedging strategy in this evolving nuclear age.
The Nuclear Aspirant

The nuclear aspirant is defined as having a desire for nuclear weapons capability yet lagging behind the rogue in terms of progress towards that goal. Iran and Syria provide good examples. Irans nascent nuclear program has also generated much international attention, but Tehrans capabilities and intentions remain largely unknown. Although a recently released National Intelligence Estimate deemed Tehrans nuclear weapons program on hold, indications are that Iran could have the capability and resources to produce a nuclear weapon within several years if it continues its peaceful nuclear program.34 Added to that are the troubling facts that Irans leadership continues to support and finance terrorist organizations, to improve the range and payload of Irans long range missiles, and to declare opposition to Israels existence.35 Syria has long been thought to have had an interest in developing nuclear weapons, alongside its other pursuits of stockpiling chemical and biological agents as well as acquiring advanced missile capabilities. How far along it may be or how considerable its interest in that capability remains uncertain. However, Israel judged Syrias path toward development unacceptable enough to have recently bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear site. If the speculation that Syria received a reactor for producing plutonium from North Korea is true, this would be the latest on a long list of Pyongyangs proliferation pursuits.36 If Damascus maintains a desire for nuclear weapons, its long-standing relationship of clandestine technology transfer with North Korea suggests a path for that pursuit.
(2) transnational terror networks and spontaneous terror cells.37 The former category includes regional armed groups such as Hezbollah and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) that may control, or attempt to control, territory and population, and may have organizational structure and access to substantial resources. Because of these characteristics, this category of actor may be somewhat predictable and deterrable in a more traditional sense.38 Alternatively, the second category of non-state actor is characterized by a diffusion of ideology, high motivation and ruthlessness, and the use of operational methods across wide geographical areas.39 Little to nothing is predictable about nuclear weapons acquired by transnational terrorist organizations other than their desire to obtain them. The most visible of these groups have already applied other unconventional weapons with devastating results, and some, including Al Qaeda, have made it known that they seek nuclear weapons. Given the potential for proliferation today, nonstate actor acquisition of nuclear weapons may arise through numerous routes: direct transfer from a patron state or government actor within that state; theft or purchase of fissile material from any number of compromised state nuclear complexes; or development of the technical base and materials needed to construct a bomb from scratch. While the last of those possibilities is highly unlikely, the first two are certainly not. Clearly, the prospect of nuclear weapons in the hands of individuals or small groups is the most uncertain dimension of the second nuclear age. The potential for collaboration among the actors described above is also worrisome. A nuclear actor prompted by state-sponsored terrorism or motivated by state-supported religious zeal offers a likely scenario of weapons acquisition in the second nuclear age. Pakistan is often cited as an example largely because of the combination of its nuclear capabilities, sympathy and sanctuary for Islamic insurgents, and internal instability.
The Non-State Actor

The non-state actor is characterized by two different categories: (1) regional armed groups and
34 35 36 37 38 39
Kenneth Katzman, Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses, CRS Report for Congress, December 5, 2007, RL32048. Ibid. See for example, Martha Raddatz, The Case for Israels Strike on Syria, ABC World News, October 19, 2007. Austin Long, DeterrenceFrom Cold War to Long War; Lessons from Six Decades of RAND Research. RAND, Santa Monica, CA, 2008, p. 81. Ibid. Ibid., p. 83.
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Government-to-government collaboration is also likely, given a supplying government fraught with political volatility. Pakistans record supports the trend of collaborating with other nationsIran, North Korea, and Libya to facilitate nuclear proliferation.40 Recently, an assessment by the Institute for Science and International Security documented that A.Q. Khan, widely considered the father of Pakistans bomb and chief purveyor of its illicit nuclear proliferation network, was involved with the planned sale of blueprints for small highly-sophisticated nuclear weapon designs.41 There is no shortage of actors with the capability to threaten the security of American interests and those of its allies. If we envision a threat landscape that stretches across the challenges of the second nuclear age, we can position the types of nuclear actors based on their capabilities and intentions. As Figure 1 depicts, the categories of actors appear along a spectrum, and the threat each poses is generally defined by two inversely related qualities, the probability of an attack and that attacks intensity. Throughout this paper, the spectrum will serve as a visual reference for how the effectiveness of deterrence and defense changes with the characteristics of the threat.
The Second Nuclear Age: Looking Forward

Nuclear weapons will continue to be leveraged in various ways: politically, as the proverbial big stick behind soft words, and militarily, as the absolute weapon.42 Will deterrence prevail as a strategy of non-use as in the first nuclear age? Or is the use of nuclear weapons more likely in a world of continuing proliferation, potential loose nukes, unguarded or unaccounted fissile material, unreliable command and control equipment and procedures, and duplicitous and rogue governments? It is within the uncertain environment of this second nuclear age that the United States must craft its strategic policy and plan the necessary forces and defenses to support it. Almost two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it would be wise to examine how U.S. strategic offensive forces and defenses originally deployed to deter the U.S.S.R. may now address a broader range of dangers. Does the deterrent strategy of assured secondstrike carried over from the earlier age still hold? Should the long-held calculation asserting that strategic defenses may prove destabilizing in times of crisis be revisited? The definition of deterrence must be updated with considerations of strategic defense to address the motivations and capabilities of new nuclear adversaries.
Figure 1. Spectrum of Conflict in the Second Nuclear Age: A Threat Landscape.
HIGHER
Modern Nuclear States
Intensity of Attack
Fractured Nuclear States
Rogue States Nuclear Aspirants
LOWER
Non-state Actors HIGHER
LOWER Likelihood of Attack

40
41 42
Richard P. Cronin, et al., Pakistans Nuclear Proliferation Activities and the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission: U.S. Policy Constraints and Options, CRS Report for Congress, May 24. 2005, RL32745. David Albright, Swiss Smugglers Had Advanced Nuclear Weapons Designs, Institute for Science and International Security, June 16, 2008. In reference to Bernard Brodie, The Absolute Weapon, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1946.
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DETERRENCE IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE

This paper examines the second nuclear age from a policy perspective, with the specific intention of advocating the integration of offensive and defensive capabilities to meet the challenges of this new era. Issues of reducing the number of nuclear weapons, slowing proliferation, and avoiding the possibility of nuclear weapons use remain high on the national agenda, and there are choices within the structure of the nuclear triad, both old and new, that must be made.43 This section of the paper details how current policy and force structure commitments will affect future assessments and choices. The policy setting for nuclear weapons choices in the second nuclear age is framed by two objectives carried over from the first: reducing launchers/warhead numbers in accordance with international arms control agreements and treaties, and specifying the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense policy. The documents defining the parameters of the policy choices in these issue-areas are the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), in effect until December 2009, and the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT, otherwise known as the Moscow Treaty), with a target of 1700-2200 deployed nuclear warheads on each side by 2012. The Nuclear Posture Reviews (NPR) of 1993 and 2002 stand as guidance for how the U.S. will implement those treaty agreements. In FY 2008 legislation, Congress directed that an NPR be conducted in 2009.
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Nuclear Arms Control: Constraining U.S. and Russian Nuclear Forces

START I is the one major nuclear arms reduction agreement remaining from the Cold War. The Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty, first proposed by President Reagan in the early 1980s, was signed in July 1991, and entered into force in December 1994.44 The principal focus of START I was not only to reduce deployed nuclear weapons launcher systems (land and sea-based ballistic missiles and long-range bombers) to 1600 for the United States and Russia, but also to establish counting rules limiting each side to 6,000 warheads. The deployment (and destruction) of warheads to reach this number was to be verified by an intrusive regime requiring on-site inspections and regular information exchanges as well as continued reliance on national technical means, i.e., overhead surveillance satellites. Although the Treaty is scheduled to expire on December 5, 2009, it can be extended in five-year increments, and both sides have expressed interest in applying key provisions of STARTs verification regime to monitor force levels agreed to under the 2002 Moscow Treaty reductions.45 SORT is the second major arms control agreement affecting future U.S. nuclear force size and structure. Signed in 2002 and entered into force the following year, SORT commits the U.S. and Russia to reduce their deployed strategic nuclear forces to 1700-2200 warheads. The Treaty allows each country
44
45
Then President-elect Obama stated, As long as nuclear weapons exist, I will retain a strong, safe, secure and reliable nuclear deterrent to protect us and our allies. But I will not authorize the development of new nuclear weapons and related capabilities. Arms Control Today 2008 Presidential Q&A: President-elect Barack Obama at http://armscontrol.org. Despite Russian threats to break it, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) also limits the nuclear capabilities of both sides, but we are principally concerned here with strategic nuclear forces. See George P. Schultz, et al., Toward a Nuclear-Free World, The Washington Post, January 15, 2008, p. A13.
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to determine for itself the number of bombers, missiles and SSBNs that would compose the force and deploy those warheads. This deployed warhead limit takes effect on the day the Treaty expires, December 31, 2012. After that, each side is free to adjust their deployed nuclear forces as they see fit. Because SORT lacks verification mechanisms, the inspection regime instituted under START I could be applied to reductions taken under SORT. But, as noted above, START I is due to expire at the end of 2009, three years before the Moscow Treaty limits must be reached.
at risk a range of assets valued by that nations leadership. The force posture required to meet that deterrent mission was slightly smaller than the Cold War triad, and included 450-500 Minuteman III ICBMs, each carrying a single warhead. In justifying the ICBM component, the NPR stressed the importance of maintaining a triad of strategic forces to hedge against a failure in any one component, and noted that each leg of the nuclear triad possessed unique characteristics and specific advantages. The 2002 NPR offered a considerably different context for U.S. nuclear force planning: an environment of uncertainty, military transformation, and capability-based planning.48 While the traditional triad of nuclear offensive forces was maintained, a New Triad presented in this NPR included conventional forces for strategic missions, missile defenses, and the nuclear weapons infrastructure. With regard to sizing the nuclear force, the NPR declared the United States would end the Cold War-era nuclear relationship with Russia, consider multiple potential nuclear opponents, and deploy the lowest number of nuclear weapons consistent with the security requirements of the U.S.49 The uncertainties of the nuclear future allowed this policy review to chart a path for warhead reductions in the near term, but it was unclear how those forces would be structured to meet the SORT goals of 1700-2200 operationally deployed warheads by 2012. What was clear was the George W. Bush Administration intended to rely on the nuclear triad of old, had plans to fully fund life extension programs for each leg, and declared that land and sea-based ICBMs and bombers would play a vital role in the nations defense until at least 2020.50 Thus, the direction for future U.S. nuclear forces and policy has been framed by the arms control treaties and policy reviews of the past, and the authors of the next NPR have much to build on. However, the challenges confronting U.S. security as we enter the second nuclear age are considerably
Nuclear Posture Reviews: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy

The U.S. Department of Defense has conducted two major reviews of its nuclear posture in an attempt to adjust American strategic nuclear forces to a post-Cold War world. The first of these reviews, chartered in 1993, concluded that despite the international upheavals that brought about the demise of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons remained an essential part of American military power.46 In considering the size and role of U.S. nuclear forces in a post-Cold War world, the 1993 NPR declared that it was the proliferation of nuclear weapons, not Russias nuclear arsenal (although those might be related), that posed the greatest risk to the United States. Therefore, the context of the NPR became lead but hedge. That is, as the U.S. sought to strengthen the non-proliferation regime by de-emphasizing nuclear weapons in American defense policy, some hedging was required. With START I just entering into force and START II not ratified, Russian nuclear capabilities remained the focus of the NPR because they constituted the only nuclear arsenal that can physically threaten the survivability of U.S. nuclear forces.47 The 1993 NPR determined it was essential that the U.S. retain sufficient nuclear forces to deter a potentially hostile Russian government by holding
46 47 48 49
50
Nuclear Posture Review, http://www.dod.mil/execsec/adr95/npr_.html. Ibid. Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review, January 9, 2002, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/usa/2002/us. U.S. Department of Defense, Findings of the Nuclear Posture Review, January 9, 2002. The theoretical Soviet first strike, the Red Integrated Strategic Operations Plan (RISOP), used to plan a U.S. second strike was formally cancelled in February 2005. See FAS says U.S. continues nuclear strike planning, Aerospace Daily, July 23, 2008, p. 2. Findings of the Nuclear Posture Review. By this time the U.S. had indicated its intent to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, thus allowing for development and deployment of integrated ballistic missile defenses.
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more complex than when complex than when those documents were were documents signed. Importantly, as as a Importantly, a part of the 2006 QDR, the Bush Administration outAdministration outlined a a tailored detertailored deterrence strategy. This This strategy. concept isisstructured on on structured the understanding that, understanding that, owing to the diverse actors the diverse actors of the second nuclear age, the second nuclear age, War War deterrent Cold Colddeterrent theotheories, strategies and ries, strategies and forces forces will augwill have to behave to be Tailoring augmented.51 mented.51 Tailoring nuclear deterrence for the deterrence for the future will require a careful mix of the strategies and of the strategies and forces proven in the first proven in the first nuclear age coupled with age coupled with new capabilities toto meet capabilities meet new threats from new new threats from actors.
There are good arguments for adhering to the strategies and forces that have brought us stable deterrence in the past against known nuclear rivals, while investing in tailored measures and capabilities to cope with the uncertainties of the future.
of Cold War confrontation, U.S. strategic nuclear policy was based on tailored deterrence of a sort, ever since the 1970s when countervailing strategies and limited nuclear options added counterforce capabilities to make retaliation more credible.
Tailored Deterrence for the Second Nuclear Age

How should nuclear deterrence be structured to meet the requirements of the second nuclear age? There are good arguments for adhering to the strategies and forces that have brought us stable deterrence in the past against known nuclear rivals, while investing in tailored measures and capabilities to cope with the uncertainties of the future. In dealing with traditional nuclear competitors, deterrence in the second nuclear age and the forces underwriting it may not differ significantly from the first. Classic deterrence convinces would-be aggressors that the costs of pursuing hostile actions far outweigh any prospective benefits. However, in the second nuclear age, there is a spectrum of deterrence that can be tailored to specific actors based on their known capabilities and suspected intentions, and on our ability to provide credible attribution of their actions. Even at the highest levels
51
The second nuclear age departs significantly from the Cold War stalemate of two superpowers. The U.S. and its allies face a wide array of actors occupying varied positions along a spectrum of potential threats. Nevertheless, the saliency of responding credibly to the existential threat to ones homeland and to extended deterrence for allies requires a deterrent that maintains and sustains many of the properties that fostered peace and stability during the first nuclear age.
Tailoring Deterrence for the Second Nuclear Age: Modern Nuclear States
Along the spectrum of deterrence that stretches across the challenges of the second nuclear age, first priority must be granted to the most serious threat, the nuclear inventories of Russia and China. What do the lessons of the Cold War teach us about nuclear deterrence at these most dangerous levels? We must admit we dont know for sure, because we know only that those policies and practices didnt fail. We dont know that they worked, because the intentions of our adversaries are largely unknown.52 Yet prudence dictates that the United States maintain and sustain its deterrent capabilities for some time until it can conclude that the nuclear arsenals of Russia and China threaten no more harm to the U.S. mainland than do those of Great Britain and
52
See Keith B. Payne, Nuclear Deterrence for a New Century, Journal of International Security Affairs, Spring 2006, Number 10, http://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/2006/10/payne.php. See Keith Paynes discussion of the valor of ignorance in Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age. But Payne is not so much questioning the wisdom of maintaining forces and policies that deterred Cold War threats successfully. Rather, he is questioning the extension of those theories and practices to a new range of WMD-armed adversaries and expecting similar successes.
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France. Therefore, the near-term objective of U.S. nuclear policy must be to rationalize the offensive arms reductions called for in the Moscow Treaty with an adequate and affordable nuclear posture to deter the extant danger. From a variety of perspectives, as outlined below, continuing to field and modernize a substantial force composed of all three legs of the traditional triad appears to be a prudent course in underwriting this deterrent capability for the future. Furthermore, because no explicit constraints on the U.S. ICBM, SLBM or bomber force remain in place, the United States retains considerable freedom in structuring the size and composition of nuclear forces to meet both legacy commitments and future challenges. A number of factors stability, survivability, reliability, credibility, sovereign basing, responsiveness, cost-effectiveness, and flexibilitywill shape and size that force.
weapons systems. The remaining warheads have been redistributed across the deployed force of Minuteman III missiles. Maintaining a distributed alert force of 450 land-based ICBMs helps convince an adversary not to attempt a disarming counter-force strike. However, reductions below this level begin to introduce stability concerns in that a nuclear power such as Russia, in times of crisis, might consider a first-strike against a diminished target set rather than suffer a first nuclear blow against its own vulnerable forcesparticularly if strategic defenses are included in the exchange calculations. Further weighing against a preemptive strike is a distributed and deployed force of submarine-based missiles, regarded as inherently survivable and therefore stabilizing, and a bomber force that can be generated and dispersed for survivability.
Survivability, Reliability, and Credibility

The December 2006 Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Nuclear Capabilities concluded that the overriding priority for the U.S. nuclear weapons enterprise is to provide and sustain a reliable, safe, secure, and credible set of nuclear weapons needed to maintain the nuclear deterrent.54 It is precisely those qualities of reliability, safety, surety, and credibility that continue to point to the need for an ICBM/SLBM/bomber force to provide a complementary combination of these attributes. Regarding the sea-based deterrent, the first of the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines will retire in 2029with SSBNs backfitted for the D-5 missile remaining in service until at least 2042. Nevertheless, a retirement starting in two decades suggests that the Navy must begin designing a replacement submarinethe SSBN(X)no later than 2012. SSBN options include a variant of the Virginia-class attack submarine, a new design, or a variant of the Trident. Other factors to be considered are the continued modification of SSBNs to SSGN configuration (with conventional cruise missiles) or reconfiguring the Trident to meet the initial Prompt Global Strike system requirement.55 In any event, owing to its flexibility and inherent survivability, the SSBN
Stability
In September 2002, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a study examining the estimated costs savings of reaching nuclear arms reduction goals through two approaches. The first of these alternatives presented was to maintain the existence of all deployed delivery systems while reducing the weapons load on each. The second was to completely retire delivery systems from service and remove entire legs from the nuclear triad.53 Unsurprisingly, it was shown that the option to retire nuclear delivery platforms allows for a considerable cost savings by eliminating the operating costs of associated systems. However, the decline in deterrence and stability accompanying any reduction in force structure by increasing the number of warheads on the remaining missiles was determined to be far more costly over the long term than any short-term budget benefit. Therefore, the CBO recommended reducing the number of deployed warheads on each delivery vehicle, rather than decreasing the number of missiles. Over the last fifteen years, reductions in the total number of deployed warheads have been partially achieved by retiring two components of the land-based ICBM force, the Peacekeeper (MX) and Minuteman II
53 54
55
Congressional Budget Office, Estimated Costs and Savings from Implementing the Moscow Treaty, Washington, D.C., September 2002. Final Report of the DSB Task Force on Nuclear Capabilities, Washington, D.C.: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, December 2006. The DoD request, unsupported by Congress, was to modify two Trident II D-5 missiles on each of the 12 deployed strategic ballistic missile submarines and replace their nuclear warheads with conventional re-entry vehicles. See the Statement of Brian R. Green, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Strategic Capabilities, to the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing, March 28, 2007.
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fleet will continue to form an important component of the nations nuclear deterrent force in the second nuclear age.
Cost-Effectiveness
Defense planners will be faced with a number of budgetary trades forced by rising operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, expensive conventional weapons programs, the continuing war on terrorism, and contesting discretionary expenditures. With a future ICBM replacement beyond the horizon and current plans calling for extending the life of the Minuteman III to 2040, the appropriate investments to maintain that course and capability appear modest in comparison to the return. While the other legs of the nuclear triad will continue to display complementary capabilities in the second nuclear age, Minuteman III continues to be the most cost-effective weapon system for underwriting tailored deterrence at the highest end of the spectrum of plausible nuclear conflict.
Sovereign Basing
A deterrent force based on American soil signifies that the U.S. maintains maximum control over its nuclear arsenal and guarantees an appropriate response when a vital interest is threatened. The land-based ICBM and bomber force coupled with a deployed SSBN fleet also reassures U.S. allies that they are protected by an American nuclear umbrella. The extension of the U.S. nuclear deterrent to allied nations has strengthened a presumption against proliferation when those countries face a nuclear threat. For example, Japan and South Korea, both of which rely on the U.S. for nuclear deterrence and stability, each might have pursued an independent nuclear deterrent following North Koreas provocative nuclear activities.56 Given the prospects for further proliferation among rogue states and nuclear aspirants such as Iran, it is conceivable that U.S. nuclear umbrella will be extended to cover friends and allies in the Middle East and elsewhere in Europe. Amid the uncertainties of the second nuclear age, both allies and would-be nuclear adversaries are aware of the deterrent valuecapability and credibilityof the U.S. nuclear triad.
Flexibility
In a paper analyzing the 2002 NPR, Lexington Institutes Dan Goure noted that the new triad of the NPR was wise in preserving the capability and synergy of the old triad of nuclear forces that retain the characteristics of being robust, flexible and responsive.59 He also argued that the ICBM leg of the triad was emerging as the most relevant of the three in the second nuclear age:
High accuracy, counterforce potential, speed and responsiveness were all characteristics of ICBMs that gave rise to problems in the context of the old East-West confrontation. Now, those same operational characteristics must be considered as positive benefits in the context of the new security environment The operational characteristics of the ICBM, prompt responsiveness, speed, precision and the ability to deliver unique payloads, are highly desirable when considering the range of strategic scenarios the United States could confront.60
Responsiveness
A 2003 National Institute for Public Policy paper noted the traditional arguments for a triad of nuclear forces in the second nuclear age, but specifically championed the ICBMs promptness, short time of flight and accuracy.57 Until the United States pursues and successfully fields a conventional prompt global strike capability, the ICBM is the principal weapon to hold at risk a strategic target that could be hardened or deeply buriedthreatening the American or an allys mainland with a nuclear strike.58 The land-based ICBM maintains exceptionally high rates of alert using continuous, secure communications, ensuring a timely response.
56
If we now revisit the previously noted spectrum, this time from a deterrence standpoint as illustrated in Figure 2, we see that triad forces carry increasing significance as priority is granted to the threats posed by modern nuclear states.
57 58
59 60
Details of U.S. security obligations to Japan, for example, may be found in U.S.-Japan Alliance: Transformation and Realignment for the Future, Security Consultative Committee Document, October 29, 2005, available at The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/scc/doc0510.html. Strategic Offensive Forces and the Nuclear Posture Reviews New Triad, Fairfax, VA: National Institute for Public Policy, March 2003, p. 24. A Prompt Global Strike capability has been called for by the Congress, but they have rejected plans to convert SLBMs, ICBMs or a space-plane-like concept to fill this requirement. Daniel Goure, Strategic Nuclear Forces in U.S. National Security in the 21st Century, Arlington, VA: October 2002, p. 18. Ibid.
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Figure 2. Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age.
HIGHER
Modern Nuclear States
Intensity of Attack
Effective Deterrence
LOWER
Tailoring Deterrence for the Second Nuclear Age: Rogue States, Nuclear Aspirants, and Non-State Actors
To this point, this paper has argued that from a number of policy perspectives, the traditional triad of nuclear forces remains essential to the formulation and execution of U.S. deterrence policy in the second nuclear age. Indeed, at the end of the spectrum that remains less likely but potentially far more devastating, the triad must meet the requirements generated by the existential threat as the U.S.
Can rogue states be deterred? The United States has acknowledged that the contemporary and emerging missile threat from hostile states requires a different approach to deterrence:61
Deterring these threats will be difficult. There are no mutual understandings or reliable lines of communication with these states. Our new adversaries seek to keep us out of their region, leaving them free to support terrorism and to pursue aggression against their neighbors. By their own calculations, these leaders may believe they can do this by holding a few of our cities hostage. Our adversaries seek enough destructive capability to blackmail us from coming to the assistance of our friends who would then become the victims of aggression.62
Can rogue states be deterred?

builds down its nuclear force under the terms of the Moscow Treaty. If we extend deterrence to the more uncertain ends of the spectrum, however, the problems of policy and force structure become more complex and choices less clear. The two new groups of actors posing nuclear threats where deterrence becomes problematic are rogue states with nascent nuclear capabilities and non-state actors that might gain rudimentary nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
61 62 63
There is a range of views on whether nuclear weapons can deter rogue states like North Korea that may possess limited nuclear capability. The belief that such states cannot be deterred has contributed to a doctrine calling for preventive military action against such states before they could threaten to launch or transfer nuclear weapons. Indeed, that was one of the principal, if ultimately mistaken, factors in prompting the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. But Jeffrey Record has argued that because rogue states have critical assets that can be held hostage to the threat of devastating retaliation nuclear deterrence will likely remain credible.63
National Policy on Ballistic Missile Defense Fact Sheet, Washington, D.C.: The White House, May 20, 2003, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases2003. Ibid. Jeffrey Record, Nuclear Deterrence, Preventive War, and Counterproliferation, Policy Analysis, No. 519, July 8, 2004, www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa519.pdf.
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Record supports his analysis by pointing out that no rogue state has ever used WMD against an enemy capable of such retaliation, and concludes that strengthening deterrence against these emerging threats is far more promising for international stability than resorting to preventive war.64 Because game theory provided considerable insight into the behavior of nuclear adversaries during the Cold War, it may also be useful to apply such a deterrent framework to the interaction of the United States and rogue states in the second nuclear age.65 Game theory is based on an assumption that the players are rational but, as Roger Myerson has recently observed, although our adversarys interests may vary widely from our own, it is also likely that we share common interests, such as avoiding the costs of destructive conflict.66 Adopting a game theory perspective, Myerson argues against regarding any adversary as irrational, lest such a declared position evolve into a selffulfilling prophesy during times of crisis.67 Others agree that deterrence must continue to be relied on in the face of these new nuclear threats. Baker Spring and Kathy Gudgel, in acknowledging the threats of regional powers armed with WMD wrote, The Cold War arsenal must be adjusted, in numbers and types of weapons, to provide deterrence in a new and dynamic situation.68 Writing earlier, Keith Payne similarly noted that it is not possible to establish a generic formula for predictably deterring a rogue challenger.69 Because different opponents (such as North Korea and Iran) will have different motivations in acquiring nuclear weapons, Payne argued that the U.S. nuclear deterrent threat must be sufficiently flexible to speak to all of these particular opponents and incentives. Paynes prescription was therefore for substantial
64
and wide-ranging intelligence that identifies and weighs the factors influencing the rogues decisionmaking, and a flexible and certain nuclear force with global reach to underwrite regional deterrence policies. A recent RAND study concluded that classical Cold War deterrent strategy may not be applicable against nuclear-armed regional adversaries because those actors may conclude they will not be any worse off for having used nuclear weapons than if they were to forego their use.70 Deterrence is much less likely to be effective in dealing with terrorist groups threatening the use of nuclear weapons. As David Holloway has argued, such groups should be deterrable in principle, because something they value can be put at risk.71 However, Holloway adds that they are likely to be shadowy groups with no return address, that they miscalculate the consequences of their actions (9/11 comes to mind), or that they actually seek to provoke a massive response to fit their apocalyptic vision and cult of martyrdom. Acknowledging these factors, the U.S. 2002 National Security Strategy states clearly that traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents; whose so-called soldiers seek martyrdom in death and whose most potent protection is statelessness.72 The June 2008 National Defense Strategy reinforces this statement: Deterrence may be impossible in cases where the value is not in the destruction of a target, but the attack and the very means of the attack, as in terrorism.73 Those who believe that deterrence strategies will have little success with transnational terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda tend to urge policies of defense, preemption or prevention rather than threats of punishment. Sophisticated defenses have
65 66 67
68 69 70
71 72 73
However, demonstrating a willingness and ability to resort to preventive military action in certain cases may act to dissuade others from similar provocative behavior, including the acquisition or transfer of WMD. See Andrew Krepinevich and Robert Martinage, Dissuasion Strategy, Washington, D.C: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, www.CSBAonline.org. The seminal classic is T.C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. Roger B. Myerson, Force and Restraint in Strategic Deterrence: A Game-Theorists Perspective, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, November 2007. Myerson goes as far to assert that, It is generally much safer to assume that our adversaries will respond appropriately to a firm deterrent strategy when our resolve and restraint are both made clear to them. Ibid. p. 22. But that may not be true for all the potential players in the second nuclear age. The Role of Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century, Heritage Foundation, April 13, 2005, www.heritage.org/Reserach/NationalSecurity/wm721.cfm. Payne, Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age, op. cit., p. 127. David Ochmanek and Lowell Schwartz, The Challenge of Nuclear-Armed Regional Adversaries, Santa Monica: RAND, 2008. The monograph goes on to advocate preventative measures to be taken before any missile launch, and active defenses to be employed after a launch. Deterrence, Preventive War, and Preemption, in George Bunn and Christopher Chyba (eds.) U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy, Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2006, p. 57. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2002. National Defense Strategy, June 2008, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, p. 12.
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important roles in the second nuclear age, and they are discussed below. But there are those who argue that, because terrorists seeking to use nuclear weapons are highly dependent on other actors in their quest for nuclear capability, deterrence also will play a role.74 While threats of retaliation will not have much utility if terrorists are bent on blowing up themselves along with their victims, deterrence tactics can be employed against their organizations and territorial bases in a targeted manner.75 Nuclear terrorism is likely to be the result of theft or transfer from a nuclear-capable state, from indigenous production or the purchase of nuclear weapons or material. But these proliferations of nuclear capability cannot occur without some state support.76 The deterrent prescription, according to Paul K. Davis and Brian Jenkins, is stark: the United States must credibly announce that any state or non-state organization that even tolerates the acquisition of WMD by terrorists within its borders will be subject to the full wrath of the United States.77 This statement, with tones reminiscent of U.S. policy during the Cuban-missile crisis, is followed up by the authors with the assertion that the United States might lower standards of evidence in ascribing guilt and may violate sovereignty in its preemptive attack to remove guilty regimes by force. Although the United States has not moved to this level of declaratory policy, it has shifted in that direction. The 2006 National Security Strategy describes a new deterrent calculus declaring that states harboring terrorists assume their guilt, and will be held to account. This policy, referred to by some as expanded deterrence relies heavily on the ability of the U.S. to define the nature and source of a terrorist-employed WMD to enable the rapid response efforts that may be critical in disrupting follow-on attacks.78 This process of nuclear attribution, developing appropriate forensic
74 75 76 77
techniques and integrating them to levels of high confidence, is still in its early stages, and faces both technical and organizational challenges. As Talmadge concludes, deterrence will depend on convincing other states that the United States actually has the capability to identify the origins of a nuclear weapon detonated on its soil.79 If the U.S. develops a demonstrated nuclear attribution capability, and backs it up with credible threats of retaliation, the odds of nuclear deterrence against terrorists and other non-state actors in the second nuclear age will be strengthened. What are the force planning implications for deterring these new actors in the second nuclear age? U.S. deterrent policies and forces must be prepared to address a wide range of nuclear threats, some still requiring a clearly disproportional retaliatory response. In other cases such punitive deterrent threats may be ill-suited to deter an actor who does not highly prize the civilian population or any infrastructure that might be placed at risk.80 Maintaining and modernizing the traditional triad to deter the capabilities of modern nuclear states is essential as the United States builds down its strategic arsenal. But what additional capabilities might be required to deter actors emerging along the spectrum of plausible nuclear conflict? A 2003 RAND study on future roles for U.S. nuclear forces argued that the forces and operational practices underwriting a contemporary theory of nuclear deterrence are likely to look very different from the current U.S. approach.81 Specifically, the RAND authors posited three situations (counterforce, special targets and critical situations) in which the U.S. might threaten the use of nuclear weapons against such actors:
COUNTERFORCE
Counterforce is defined as the targeting of enemy nuclear forces to limit damage to the United States
78 79 80 81
See Caitlin Talmadge, Deterring a Nuclear 9/11, The Washington Quarterly, Spring 2007, pp. 21-34. Klaus-Dieter Schwarz, The Future of Deterrence, SWP Research Paper S13, Berlin: German Institute for International and Security Affairs, June 2005, p. 13. See Nuke blueprints found on computers kept by smugglers, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, June 19, 2008, p. 4. Paul K. Davis and Brian Michael Jenkins, Deterrence and Influence in Counterterrorism, Santa Monica: RAND NDRI, p. xv. See also Jenkins, Will Terrorists Go Nuclear? New York: Prometheus, 2008, in which the author advocates steps for securing and decreasing nuclear arsenals, and strengthening both international institutions and terrorist-related intelligence. National Security Strategy of the United States of America, March 2006, www.whitehouse.gov.nsc/nss/2006. Talmadge, op. cit. p. 30. See Kenneth Watman and Dean Wilkening, U.S. Regional Deterrence Strategies, Santa Monica: RAND, 1995. Glenn Buchan, David M. Matonick, Calvin Shipbaugh, and Richard Mesic, Future Roles of U.S. Nuclear Forces, Santa Monica: RAND, 2003, p. xix.
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in a nuclear exchange. The RAND authors speculate that fledgling nuclear powers are unlikely to deploy hardened or survivable nuclear forces, and that even a modest U.S. capability would represent considerable inherent counterforce capability against emerging nuclear powers.
to leverage near-term technologies to field a next generation long-range strike system (NGLRS, also called next-generation bomber, or NGB) to replace the oldest B-52s by 2018, and continue the divestiture of legacy bombers. The NGLRS system is expected to be manned and nuclear-capable.83
SPECIAL TARGETS
If an adversary does take steps to harden or deeply bury nuclear assets such as command centers, manufacturing plants or storage sites, nuclear weapons may be required to destroy such sites. The RAND study notes that maintaining a capability to successfully attack these targets is the most fundamental tenet of deterrence holding at risk whatever the enemy values.
Persistent Awareness
The RAND argument calling for ISR support comparable to that for conventional weapons demands an integrated, layered system of sensors, platforms and decision support aids. ISR operations in the second nuclear age may include overflights in relatively benign air defense environments. Because of this, nonstealthy unmanned vehicles, such as the Global Hawk and Predator, and manned systems such as Joint STARS with improved movingtarget indicator radars may be included as part of the ISR tools utilized by theater and ground commanders.84 However, most proposed layered ISR systems call for a mix of space-based capabilities and stealthy unmanned vehicles, with satellites offering both space and terrestrial situational awareness and a hedge against intelligence prediction shortfalls, and stealthy unmanned vehicles able to seek and track mobile missiles or similar fleeting targets. The Navys Unmanned Combat Air System (N-UCAS), currently in a demonstration phase, is a promising system to provide such targetable information over great distances and long duration with sustained survivability.85
CRITICAL MILITARY SITUATIONS

Crises might arise in which nuclear use surfaces as an option because other alternatives (e.g., conventional force, missile defense) appear inadequate. Such a situation may require flexible nuclear-capable forces that can be put in place to convey a deterrent threat and that will be perceived as credible by the adversary.
In all of these cases, the RAND analysts concluded that if the United States is to adopt a nuclear posture capable of deterring emerging threats in the second nuclear age, it will require the targeting flexibility and the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support comparable to that needed for conventional weapons.82 In addition to preserving and modernizing the triad, then, three additional force planning initiatives to underwrite deterrence in the second nuclear age appear promising.
Prompt Global Strike

Recent proposals for a non-nuclear prompt global strike capability have been advanced on the premise that there are several circumstances in which it could serve U.S. national objectives to be able to strike targets very rapidly, with high accuracy and high confidence of reaching the target, and with necessary military effect, but without using nuclear weapons.86 The circumstances under which a
Next Generation Bomber

Within the traditional triad, the long-range bomber force is critical to maintaining U.S. longrange nuclear capability, flexible targeting, and man-in-the-loop command and control (whether the aircraft is manned or not). The Air Force plans
82 83
84 85
86
Ibid. p. 93. But it will surely have conventional capability and an unmanned variant is a strong possibility. See Robert Haffa and Michael Isherwood, The 2018 Bomber, Northrop Grumman Analysis Center Papers, August 2008. See Michael Isherwood, Global Hawk and Persistent Awareness, Northrop Grumman Analysis Center Papers, August 2008. See Tom Erhard and Robert Work, The Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration Program, Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, May 10, 2007. N-UCAS is not being designed as a weapons platform, although it will have such a capability, if desired. Conventional Prompt Global Strike Capability: Letter Report, Committee on Conventional Prompt Strike Capability, National Research Council, Washington D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, May 11, 2007, p. 2. The topic of this paper generally restricts the conversation to nuclear deterrence and defense, although conventional force can clearly have a deterrent effect against emerging nuclear actors and capabilities and defensive systems that have for many years been conventional only. For a dated but valuable bibliographic essay on conventional deterrence see Charles T. Allan, Extended Conventional Deterrence, The Washington Quarterly, 17 (Fall 1994), pp. 203-33.
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prompt global strike capability might be used are generally conceived quite narrowly: a time-critical strike to counter non-state actor or rogue state activities or a strike at a distant target at the leading edge of major combat operations. In the near term the only non-nuclear option for such a global strike must rely on forward-deployed conventional forces; however, several proposals have been advanced to gain a prompt global strike capability. One option is to convert some nuclear warheads on the Trident II missile carried on ballistic missile submarines to a conventional capability. But Congress has balked at funding this proposal, owing principally to the concern that, in a crisis, launching a conventionallyarmed SLBM might be misinterpreted, eliciting a launch on warning response. Other prompt global strike conventional options include conventionally armed land-based ICBMs, intercontinental hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, modification of the Kinetic Energy Interceptor booster, or hypersonic cruise missiles launched from bombers or
ships. Even if politically acceptable, the desirability and feasibility of such capabilities will be subjected to considerable scrutiny. As a search for a prompt non-nuclear global strike platform continues, in the second nuclear age the only existing capability remains with nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles. Not long after the end of the Cold War, senior U.S. policy makers acknowledged that deterrence may not provide even the cold comfort it did during the Cold War. We may be facing terrorists or rogue regimes with ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons at the same time in the future, and they may not buy into our deterrence theory.87 Fortunately, the United States does not have to rely solely on deterrence in the second nuclear age as it did in the first. It can now add missile defense and, perhaps more importantly, the synchronization of deterrence and defense. It is to these topics we now turn.
Fortunately, the United States does not have to rely solely on deterrence in the second nuclear age.
87
Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, quoted in Payne, Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age, p. 58.
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DEFENSE IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE

Although the United States has pursued defensive systems since the ballistic missile threat first emerged, the post-Cold War period has seen the most progress in developing and deploying missile defenses. It is unlikely that these defenses will have to contend with massive hypothesized Cold War nuclear exchanges, nor are they designed to do so. Rather, it is the advent and rise of nuclear threats posed by rogue nations, nuclear aspirants, fractured states, and non-state actors that necessitate layered missile defenses capable of rapid deployment and effective response. Although a lengthy historical review of U.S. ballistic missile defense is beyond our scope, certain milestones in missile defense concepts and capabilities deserve a quick summary to help position current programs and initiatives. program led to the development of the SprintSpartan program: the Sprint for point, terminal defense and the Spartan for defeating re-entry vehicles as they transited through space. Despite this original formulation of a layered missile defense system, the Systems Analysis office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense judged that the Soviets could easily negate the systems effectiveness.89 Efforts continued, nevertheless, focused on the relatively limited number of Chinese ICBMs rather than on the larger Soviet force. In 1967 President Johnson ordered the fielding of the Sentinel system to provide a limited population defense from the Chinese missile threat.90 The Nixon Administration refocused U.S. missile defenses to protect U.S. ICBMs, renamed the program Safeguard, and initiated the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks that led to the signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty91 in 1972. The ABM Treaty limited the United States and the Soviet Union to two defense sites each, with no more than 100 interceptors at each site. Additionally, the Treaty constrained each sides ability to develop, test, or deploy ABM launchers and prohibited development of sea-based, air-based, or space-based ABM systems.92 A 1974 protocol reduced the ABM sites to one for each country. Soon thereafter, Congress directed that the Safeguard site in North Dakota be closed, essentially abandoning missile defense for the balance of the Cold War.93
Missile Defense in the First Nuclear Age

In the late 1950s, owing to Sputnik, the perceived missile gap, Soviet ICBM development, and a growing concern about the increasing vulnerability of U.S. strategic forces, a series of studies and tests were conducted to explore the desirability and feasibility of defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles. At this time the U.S. Army pushed for deployment of a national missile defense system based on the Nike-Zeus program, but it was judged to be ineffective against the large-scale attacks the Soviets might be capable of launching in the ensuing decade.88 The shortfalls in the Nike-Zeus
88
89 90
91 92
93
The system was designed around a slow interceptor missile and mechanically-steered radars, limiting its ability to distinguish decoys from real warheads, and leaving it vulnerable to saturation attacks. See Enthoven and Smith, How Much is Enough, p. 185. See Enthoven and Smith, op. cit., pp. 187-190. MDA Historians Office, Ballistic Missile Defense: a Brief History, MDALink, http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/html.briefhis.html, accessed June 24, 2008. Much of the historical discussion in this paper comes from this document. Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems. United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Arms Control and Disarmament Agreements: Test and Histories of Negotiations, 1982 edition, Washington, D.C.: ACDA, pp. 137-138. MDA Historians Office, op. cit.
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In addition to establishing the primacy of deterrence over defense, the ABM Treaty focused on continental missile defense. This effectively separated missile defense into different national and theater programs and stunted the development of an integrated BMD system. A decade later, President Reagans 1983 speech again called for a way to render nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete through a long-term research and development program.94 As a result, the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) (later renamed the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization [BMDO] and now called the Missile Defense Agency) was formed. SDIO worked within existing treaty constraints and technical hurdles weighing against national missile defense to develop missile defense capabilities to counter primarily the Soviet threat. However, the importance of theater missile defense was heightened during the 1990-91 Gulf War when short-range Scud missiles were launched against deployed U.S. and allied forces. The ensuing Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS) concept, comprised ofof ground-based ground-based National Missile Defense, Missile Defense, ground-based Theater ground-based Theater Missile Defense, and a and Missile Defense, Space-based GlobalGlobal a space-based Defense proposed an inteintegrated ballistic missile ballistic missile defense system capable of system capable of countering these proliferthese proliferating threats.95
106-38) was signed into law by President Clinton. The Act declared:
It is the policy of the United States to deploy as soon as is technologically possible an effective National Missile Defense system capable of defending the territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile attack (whether accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate).
Subsequently, in response to the Iranian and Korean tests of medium-range ballistic missiles, the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States pointed to a growing threat and recommended that U.S. practices depending on extended warning of future enemy missile deployment be revised to reflect a non-warning environment.96 It was principally diplomacy, rather than technology that had constrained the progress of missile defense. It was not until 2001 when President Bush declared that the ABM Treaty had outlived its Cold War-era usefulness that BMD deployments could begin and an integrated ballistic missile defense system (BMDS) could be engineered. The 2002 National Policy on Ballistic Missile Defense eliminated the artificial distinction between national and theater missile defenses, and advocated a global BMDS capable of protecting the U.S. homeland, as well as American allies and friends. To deal with evolving threats, the policy called for a layered defense system capable of defending against missiles throughout their boost, mid-course, and terminal phases of flight.97 The result of that layered approach to ballistic missile defense is shown in Figure 3. It illustrates the planned approach to the sensors (radar, infrared) on multiple platforms (space-, sea-, and ground-based), interceptors and the command, control, battle management and communications systems to counter threats throughout the boost,
It was principally diplomacy, rather than technology, that had constrained the progress of missile defense.
In 1993, the Clinton Administration increased the priority on improving existing air defense programs such as the Patriot and Aegis systems so that they could intercept ballistic missiles. The administration also promoted Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), and advocated regional terminal missile defense technological advances, including the Armys Extended Range Interceptors (ERINT) hit-to-kill capability. This emphasis on theater missile defense continued as ballistic missile technology proliferated. On July 22, 1999, the National Missile Defense Act of 1999 (Public Law
94 95 96 97
President Ronald Reagan, address to the nation, March 23, 1983. Ibid. Report of the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, July 15, 1998. Ibid.
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Figure 3. The Integrated Ballistic Missile Defense System (Current and Planned).
Sensors
Defense Support Program Space Tracking and Surveillance System Sea-Based Radars Forward-Based Radar with Adjunct Sensor Midcourse X-Band Radar Early Warning Radar
Boost Defense Segment Midcourse Defense Segment
Terminal Defense Segment
Airborne Laser
Sea-Based Terminal
Kinetic Energy Booster
Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense/ Standard Missile-3
Multiple Kill Vehicle
Ground-Based Midcourse Defense
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Patriot Advanced Capability-3
Command, Control, Battle Management & Communications

Adapted from: Lt Gen Trey Obering, USAF, Director, Missile Defense Agency, "Ballistic Missile Defense Program Overview," 10 June 2008.
NMCC
USSTRATCOM
USNORTHCOM Army
USPACOM Navy
EUCOM Air Force
CENTCOM TBD
Designated Lead Service:
midcourse, and terminal phases of ballistic missile trajectory. The complexity of designing, developing and integrating a BMDS for operation along very short timelines is suggested by this figure.
Just as we must tailor deterrence for the second nuclear age, so must we also tailor defense.
Tailoring Ballistic Missile Defenses for the Second Nuclear Age

Just as we must tailor deterrence for the second nuclear age, so must we also tailor defense. Indeed, defense takes on an even greater role in this age, because the U.S. faces a growing number of state and non-state nuclear actors lacking the qualities of stability, rational decision-making, and positive weapons control that characterized Cold War deterrence. In the absence of sufficient and effective
98
intelligence of those actors capabilities and intentions, missile defense can hedge against the uncertain nuclear path adversaries such as Iran or North Korea may take. Thus, missile defense contributes to deterrence by denial.98 Developing BMD systems and conducting tests convey the capability and the intent to defeat an attack, thus dissuading an adversary from aggressive acts against U.S. or allied interests.99 Where should emphasis be placed in tailoring missile defense in the second nuclear age? Figure 4 illustrates the potential contributions of missile defenses against individual categories of actors, defending against attack and denying the capability
99
Glenn Snyder developed the distinction between deterrence by punishment and deterrence by denial, suggesting that denial capabilities worked on influencing the aggressors calculations of achieving his objective, while deterrence by punishment affects his cost calculations. See Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003 p. 107. See M. Elaine Bunn, Can Deterrence Be Tailored? Strategic Forum, No. 225, January 2007.
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The contributions of missile defense are likely to be the greatest precisely where the deterrent effect is the most uncertain.
of the attacker to inflict serious damage.100 In contrast to Figure 2, where deterrence loses effectiveness against actors seen as less deterrable, defense gains effectiveness. Thus the contributions of missile defense are likely to be the greatest precisely where the deterrent effect is the most uncertain. That suggestion deserves further elaboration.
more modest 3,113.101 As previously indicated, observers have noted a resurgence of the importance of nuclear weapons in Russian defense policy, with modernization of ICBM, SSBN, and bomber forces all underway. Russia is expected to abide by the terms of the Moscow Treaty, but may still possess an inventory of 2,490 deployed strategic nuclear weapons in 2015.102 The quantity and quality of this post-Cold War Russian inventory argues for an emphasis on strategic deterrence. Indeed, as the United States has withdrawn from the ABM Treaty consistent with its national interests and moved to field missile defenses, it has stressed that these defenses are not targeted at Russian missiles nor meant to threaten Russias deterrent.103 Clearly, defending against an all-out attack of some 2000 Russian warheads from fully-alerted forces is beyond the capability of the existing and planned Ground-based Midcourse Defense system (GMD). The only plausible way in which these defenses could be useful to thwart a Russian nuclear attack is in the off-design scenario featuring an unauthorized attack by a mad submarine commander or from an unauthorized or accidental attack from a Russian ICBM site.104 Thus,
The Modern Nuclear State

Russia possesses the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, estimated at roughly 14,000 nuclear weapons, while its strategic nuclear warheads deployed on the Russian triad are counted at a
Figure 4. Ballistic Missile Defense in the Second Nuclear Age.
HIGHER
Modern Nuclear States Effective Defense
Intensity of Attack
LOWER
100
101 102 103
104
Although not shown in Figure 4, intelligence, broadly defined, provides insights into the nature and characteristics of individual threats to shape a tailored missile defense response to those threats. Furthermore, accurate and timely intelligence can enable missile defenses to be more efficient and effective than they would be without. Russian Nuclear Forces, 2008, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, May/June 2008, p. 54. Ibid. p. 57. See Remarks by the Honorable Walter B. Slocombe on National Missile Defense Policy, November 5, 1999,http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/usdefense/Slocombe1199.html. Also see Remarks by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Moscow, Russia: March 17, 2008, http://www.stae.gov/secretary/rm/2008/03/102315.htm. See Russ Shaver, Priorities for Ballistic Missile Defense, in Paul K. Davis (ed), New Challenges for Defense Planning, Santa Monica: RAND, 1994, p.265.
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regarding Russia, missile defenses play a minor role along our spectrum of actors and threats in the second nuclear age. China is the second state with the capability of launching an intercontinental missile attack on the United Statesand it is increasing its capability to do so.105 Projections of Chinas growing military strength suggest that the PRC seeks to maintain domestic and regional stability while it develops its economic, military, scientific, and cultural power.106 Consistent with that strategy and with an anti-access/area denial capability, the PRC is developing numerous types of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and anti-ship missiles. Current estimates are that China now has about 176 deployed nuclear warheads, and up to 240 counting stored warheads. But Chinas recent deployment of the new DF-31 and 31A ICBMs with ranges up to 7,000 miles may be the most worrisome development. The U.S. intelligence community predicts that China may have about 100 warheads capable of reaching the United States mainland by 2015.107 Although the U.S. chose not to defend itself against Soviet ballistic missile attack, that was not the case regarding China. The Sentinel missile defense system proposed by President Johnson in 1967 and supported by President Nixon in 1970 was primarily designed to provide an area defense of the United States against Chinese ICBM attack.108 With the signing of the ABM Treaty and the eventual deactivation of the Safeguard complex in 1976, defense against Chinese ICBMs was forgone. However, the subsequent operational capability of the GMD system has again raised the issue of negating the Chinese strategic deterrent. When China and Russia issued a joint statement condemning American plans to field national missile defense, the U.S. State Department declared that such a system was not directed against them:
Weve made it clear that our National Missile Defense is not directed against Russia and it is not
105 106 107 108 109
directed against China; it is designed to deal with the emerging long-range ballistic missile threat.109
Despite that declaration, the U.S. deployment of missile defenses on its homeland may have prodded Chinese strategic modernization. For that matter, the U.S. implied it did not object if China modernized its long-range missile force if that would make China more comfortable with American missile defense plans.110 Regardless of that buildup and the state of U.S.-Chinese relations, the missile defense capability being deployed by the United States will pose a significant defense and deterrent by denial to any planned and deployed Chinese nuclear force over the next decade and beyond.
Rogue States, Nuclear Aspirants, Fractured States, and Non-state Actors

The threats presented by rogue states, nuclear aspirants, fractured states, and non-state actors are the focus of the current BMDS. Developing a means of defense against rogue states possessing both WMD and ballistic missiles reduces the level of risk associated with the uncertainty regarding these actors motivations and intentions, and establishes a defensive hedge against a deterrence failure. North Korea is the rogue state most commonly referred to in arguments supporting missile defense, and Iran is a nuclear aspirant; both have demonstrated capabilities to conduct multiple-salvo missile launches. While these countries rightly receive the most attention for missile defense, the global proliferation of WMD and delivery means demand a BMDS capable of global flexible response. North Korea publicly stated its intention to launch a satellite on its Taepo Dong I. While the 1998 alleged satellite launch failed, the missile was launched over Japans Honshu Island, creating political turmoil in Japan and eventually pushing the Japanese government toward its own missile defenses and a change in its constitution to allow such capabilities.111 Variants of the Taepo Dong
110 111
Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2008, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, July/August 2008, p. 42. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the Peoples Republic of China, 2008, p. 1. Chinese Nuclear Forces 2008, p. 42. Enthoven and Smith, op.cit., p. 192. See also Keith Payne, The Great American Gamble, Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2008, pp. 137-140. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, US Says Missile Defense not Aimed at China, Russia, July 19, 2000, http://english.people.com.cn/english/200007/19/eng20000719_45848.html. See William E. Berry, Jr., Northeast Asia Implications, in Wirtz and Larsen (eds), Nuclear Transformation, p. 227. Steven A. Hildreth, CRS Report for Congress: North Korean Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, CRS RS21473, January 24, 2008, p. 2.
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missile have different ranges. The short or intermediate range versions could reach Guam, Okinawa, and Japan, and the Taepo Dong II may be able to reach Alaska and Hawaii from North Korea.112 Iran has an ambitious ballistic missile development program aided by Russia, China, and North Korea. Its Shahab-3 long range ballistic missile was tested as recently as July 2008.113 That missiles estimated range of 1,250 miles poses a threat not only to Israel, but also to Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and parts of Eastern Europe. This could lead the U.S. to assist its allies in seeking regional missile defense solutions. Irans refusal to halt its nuclear production program promotes concern that fissile material could be diverted to a weapons capability.114 Publicly acknowledged U.S. intelligence assessments suggest that Iran could develop a nuclear-tipped ICBM before 2015.115 Pakistan, motivated principally by Indias plans to deploy a nuclear triad of aircraft and land- and seabased missiles, appears to be improving its nuclear weapons and delivery capabilities. Recent estimates of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal suggest as many as 60 nuclear weapons and perhaps four types of ballistic missiles that can deliver significant payloads over various ranges. The most troubling of these is the Shaheen-2 with a range of more than 1,200 miles. Still under development, that missile was tested in February 2007.116 It is not only the Pakistani deterrent with respect to India that is of concern, but also the chance that instability, civil war, or a coup could result in a new set of actors, hostile to U.S. interests, obtaining control of these weapons and delivery systems.117 Non-state Actors are generally characterized as undeterrable extremists or terrorists seeking WMD to carry out their radical goals. The global reach of these non-state actors is a product not only their own capabilities, but also their worldwide network
112 113
of state-sponsored terrorism and WMD technology transfer. The likelihood of these actors using a nuclear weapon, once in their possession, is high. But the intensity of such an attack, and the probability of ballistic missile use, is low. Nevertheless, any such prospect bolsters the need for mobile, flexible missile defenses, supported by persistent awareness, tailored to deal with a threat from unanticipated and unpredictable directions.
Missile Defense in the Second Nuclear Age: How Much is Enough?

Given the diverse threats of this second nuclear age, how much missile defense, and of what kind, is enough? Dean Wilkening sketched out an approach to answering that question a decade ago.118 Once an intercontinental threat appeared, he argued, a defense with about 100 interceptors deployed at one or two sites around the U.S. should be able to intercept an incoming attack of 10-20 warheads. That assumed that defensive systems could detect and track those warheads with nearly perfect accuracy, but that the probability of kill for each interceptor was relatively low. Challenges that could stretch these rates of success included more numerous threats, decoys, and countermeasures, and thus Wilkening argued for a layered system of boost-phase, mid-course and terminal missile defenses, with particular emphasis placed on airborne boost-phase intercept systems. Eased by the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002, a good deal of progress toward that layered system of missile defense has been made since Wilkening made those projections. In the words of the Missile Defense Agency:
With the initial fielding of the BMDS in July 2006, the United States now has a limited defense against ballistic missile attack. This initial capability provides a defense against short and medium-range ballistic missiles using Patriot Advanced Capability
114
115 116 117 118
Ibid. U.S. Source Disputes Iran Missile Tests, CNN, July 10, 2008. While Iran launched seven missiles, including a Shahab-3, on July 9, U.S. intelligence community officials disputed the Iranian claim to multiple launches on July 10. See also Iran Reports Test of Craft Able to Carry a Satellite, The New York Times, August 18, 2008, p. A5; and Iran looks forward to next satellite launch attempt, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, October 14, 2008, p. 2. Michael Goodman and Wyn Q. Bowen, Behind Irans Nuclear Weapons halt, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 19, 2008, http://thebulletin.org. See also Iran Issues New Warnings after Defying a Deadline, The New York Times, August 5, 2008, p. A10. Richard Garwin, When could Iran deliver a nuclear weapon? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 17, 2008, http://thebulletin.org. See Pakistans Nuclear Forces, 2007, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2007, pp. 71-74. See David Albright, Securing Pakistans Nuclear Weapons Complex, October 2001, http://www.isis-online.org/publications/terrorism/stanleypper.html. Dean A. Wilkening, How Much Ballistic Missile Defense is Enough, Stanford University: Center for International Security and Cooperation, October 1998.
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(PAC-3) missiles and Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Standard Missile-3 (SM-3). The initial capability also enables engagement of intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles in the midcourse phase using Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs). These layers are integrated through an advanced C2BMC network.119
Global Warning, Tracking and Handoff

Since the 1960s, the United States has developed a highly reliable and accurate surveillance and missile warning system comprised of space-based sensors, ground-based radars, and a command and control network providing integrated warning of ballistic missile launches. Because of the criticality of missile warning, the U.S. relies on sensors based on multiple phenomenology (e.g., radar, electro-optical/infrared) to ensure accuracy and confidence in attack warning and attack assessment. However, the increasing complexity of the global threat, coupled with technological improvements in sensors and communications, drive the requirement for advanced sensor capabilities serving both intercontinental and regional missile defense. Tracking ballistic missiles in their midcourse phase against the cold backdrop of space calls for sensors able to detect and discriminate among decoys, chaff, and other countermeasures, to then track the warhead, and to hand off its trajectory to interceptor fire control. Multiple terrestrial and space-based sensors and their associated C3 form the foundation for a layered approach to a global sensor network.
Operational integration of these various systems poses a considerable challenge as each platform, interceptor, and the command and control and sensor systems enabling them, proceed along differing paths to maturity. For example, the GMD system has encountered considerable testing hurdles, while the THAAD system, after a number of failures, has enjoyed a string of successes.120 This unevenness in system performance and technological maturity poses significant challenges to integrated missile defense: the interaction of active defense systems, passive defense systems, and attack operations, as well as the battle management, command control and communications, and intelligence systems required to support them.121 Where should emphasis be placed in the BMDS as we grapple with the threats of the second nuclear age? A glance at the spectrum of deterrence and defense in the second nuclear age (Figure 4) suggests that the United States may wish to place increasing weight on the most problematic of these threats; the rogue, nuclear aspirants, and fractured states with nuclear weapons and delivery capability. While North Korea and Iran provide the focus for the near term deployed BMDS, the growing relationships among these actors suggest a strategy comprised of global, mobile BMD interceptor capabilities integrated with the ability to provide global precise and persistent tracking, discrimination, and space situational awareness. In the previous section we outlined key factors, such as stability, survivability, flexibility and sovereign basing, that should shape U.S. deterrent capability in the second nuclear age. What are the factors that should structure a missile defense system for the future?
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Mobile, Flexible, Rapidly Deployable Interceptors

Only a mobile interceptor capability can be sufficiently flexible to be deployed wherever needed to respond to a wide range of threats. The problem with fixed missile defense sites, other than those constructed on U.S. soil, is that they rely on strategic assumptions that may not prove to be long-lasting.122 Daniel Goure has argued that assumptions that Russia could be treated as an ally, and that we could safely predict the launch locations of ballistic missile threats, leading to a decision to place a permanent third site in Eastern Europe, must, in light of the Russian invasion of Georgia, be questioned.123 Unlike fixed installations that are subject to political whim, geo-political pressures, and preventive or pre-emptive attack, mobile missile defenses can respond to each of these vagaries.
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121 122
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Missile Defense Worldwide, Washington, D.C.: U.S. DoD, BMDS Booklet, Fifth Edition, 2008, p. 1. C2BMC stands for Command, Control, Battle Management, and Communications. U.S. anti-missile testing takes a hit, scores a hit, C4ISR Journal, August 2008, p. 8. See also, Steven Hildreth, Kinetic Energy Kill for Ballistic Missile Defense: A Status Overview, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, January 5, 2007. Kerry M. Kartchner, Implementing Missile Defense in Wirtz and Larsen, op.cit., p. 78. For instance, premising strategic decisions on the continued willingness of a sovereign nation to allow permanent missile defense basing on its territory may not prove viable over the longer term. Daniel Goure, Dealing with the Russian Threat, Defense News, September 8, 2008.
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These land-mobile, sea-mobile, or air-based systems do not require a permanent, negotiated and, possibly, disruptive overseas presence, nor do they require a large force protection footprint. They are responsive to changes in domestic attitudes on defense, are less vulnerable to foreign attack, and are projected to be more cost-effective. A rapidly deployable missile defense capability provides a quick, defensive option to an unexpected missile crisis, could be used to reinforce existing defenses as a crisis escalates, and would have to be factored into an adversarys deterrent calculus as he contemplates the success of an initial missile strike. Such a capability, owing to its flexible deployment, basing mode and technologies employed, could add value to a layered system throughout the boost, ascent and mid-course phase of missile and warhead flight. What are the force planning implications for a ballistic missile defense system to meet the challenges of the second nuclear age? The good news is that, unlike deterrence, we do not have to ponder the question of whether the putative adversary will be influenced by the measures we put in place. The ability to defend against a missile strike is a technical, not a psychological problem. The bad news is that the threats are proliferating, and show no signs of abating. Thus the challenges for missile defense are every bit as great as those facing an offensive prompt global strike capability, with the added challenge that these defensive systems must respond on a moments notice, and they cannot afford to miss. Given those challenges, and the above requirements, a prudent investment path for missile defense in the second nuclear age should include the following.
Management, and Communications (C2BMC) program. C2BMC is designed to ensure the flow of information necessary to detect, track, link sensors and weapons, and defeat any missile attack on any vector, in any phase of flight.
C2BMC provides a planning capability to locate sensors and weapons systems to counter identified threats; situational awareness at all leadership levels of the evolving battle and status of defensive assets, sensor netting to detect, identify, track and discriminate threats; global integrated fire control to pair the right sensors and weapons systems against multiple threats for the highest probability of kill and most efficient management of a relatively limited shot magazine; and global communications networks to manage and distribute essential data efficiently.124
Ground, Airborne and Space-based Sensors

A layered integrated system of ballistic missile defenses must first rely on a family of sensors. This family will include current and modified groundbased sensors, and mobile, sea-based sensors and radars such as X-band radars on Aegis destroyers as well as a very powerful X-band radar mounted on a semi-submersible.125 Currently, the legacy Defense Support Program is the only operational space-based missile defense sensor providing early warning alerts on launch and initial trajectory aim point information. Critical additions to this capability will be the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) and the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS). These will provide attack warning, target detection, and precise tracking for interceptor fire control solutions and engagement in all phases of the missiles ballistic trajectory. Deployed to a forward theater, airborne sensors provide additional sources of sensor phenomenology for persistent awareness.
Missile Defense C4ISR

Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) is generally far too encompassing a phrase to provide meaningful force planning guidance, but an integrated approach to a global ballistic missile defense demands investment across-the-board. The centerpiece of the Missile Defense Agencys plans for a layered missile defense system is its Command and Control, Battle
124 125
Sea-based Missile Defense

Reportedly, a threat posed by a new Chinese ballistic missile against U.S. Navy ships led to the recent decision to build more DDG-51 class-destroyers to meet sea-based missile defense requirements. Evidently, it also led U.S. regional combatant commanders to demand upgrades to current sea-based
U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Missile DefenseWorldwide, Washington, D.C.: BMDS Booklet, Fifth Edition, p 15. DoD News Briefing with Lt. General Henry Obering, Director, Missile Defense Agency, July 15, 2008.
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missile defense capability and increased production to meet future demands.126 While these improvements may enable U.S. naval forces to overcome anti-access barriers in place along the Pacific Rim, an integrated Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) ballistic missile defense system with sea-based capability able to defeat long-range ballistic missiles during boost, ascent and mid-course phases of flight will be a more important contribution. The KEI system is designed to interoperate with existing sensors, planned BMDS sensors, and the C2BMC system to add an additional layer of high-performance, high-mission assurance, and cost-effective BMDS capability.127 KEIs fire control allows the system to be sensor indifferent and, therefore, compute an intercept solution based on threat information gathered from any sensor in the family.
Airborne Boost-phase Missile Defense

The airborne laser (ABL) is the near-term airborne capability of most interest to ballistic missile defense. Focused on the boost-phase threat posed by ballistic missiles, the ABL uses a chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) capable of producing a megawatt-class beam with a range of several hundred kilometers.130 Integrated into a modified commercial aircraft, the ABL is seen as a first line of defense in the BMDS, owing to its ability to destroy a missile in boost phase. This capability reduces the number of targets that subsequent layers of the system will need to engage. The ABLs ability to detect launch sites will also facilitate counterstrikes as required. To this point in the paper, we have described the features of the second nuclear age, suggested its deterrent and defense requirements, and sketched the force planning implications of those requirements. But we also noted that a principal feature of this age is the a departure from the Cold War separation of deterrence and defense in favor integrating and synchronizing deterrent and defensive systems to meet future threats. In a previous study, Strategic Synchronization, General John Piotrowski (USAF, Ret.) related the dangers of ignoring defense and cited historical events as evidence to support his assertion.131 Recognizing the need for continued strong offensive/deterrent capabilities, he went on to emphasize that "[w]hat is needed is offense/defense synchronization (ODS) for the entire U.S. defense establishment."132 The final section of the paper outlines how synchronization might be achieved.
Land-based, Rapidly Deployable Missile Defense

A major advantage of the KEI system is that it can be rapidly deployable by air to land-bases abroad, and made operational within hours to meet an unexpected threat. This concept of operations is based on the premise that if we have a very high acceleration booster thats mobile, we can move close to the threat country and be able to get the acceleration needed to shoot down a missile while in the boost/ascent phase.128 Like its sea-based cousin, a land-based KEI provides a high-confidence boost-phase defense layer while also offering a flexible, forward-based mid-course intercept capability.129
126 127 128 129 130 131 132
Missile Threat Helped Drive DDG Cut, Defense News, August 4, 2008, p. 1. Missile DefenseWorldwide, p. 33. DoD News Briefing with General Obering, July 15, 2008. See Amy Butler, Striving for Speed, Aviation Week, September 15, 2008, pp. 48-50. Missile DefenseWorldwide, p. 19. Strategic Synchronization: The Relationship between Strategic Offense and Defense, General John L. Piotrowski, USAF (Ret.), The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 7. Ibid. p. 45.
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SYNCHRONIZING DETERRENCE AND DEFENSE IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE

The prevailing paradigm in the first nuclear age was that national interests and treaty obligations necessitated that deterrence, defense, and the forces underwriting them be separated in pursuit of distinctly different objectives. Meeting the challenge of the second nuclear age calls for synchronizing deterrence and defense to provide a range of flexible, integrated, and time-sensitive response options enabling U.S. decision-makers to counter a range of current and emerging nuclear threats. of nuclear weapons and missile defense issues was no longer appropriate, suggesting the complex nexus of offenses, defenses and multiple actors can be seen as a set of interconnected gears.134 Although the vectors of the varying nuclear actors could not be predicted with high confidence, Bunn argued that it was necessary to understand their directions and connections, in order to develop a comprehensive approach to nuclear deterrence and missile defenses. In that regard, she challenged the authors of the next NPR to take a longer viewof where the United States should be headed with regard to the emphasis it places on offenses and defenses and the proper mix of forces.135 The 2002 Nuclear Posture Review took several important declaratory steps toward offense-defense integration/operational synchronization within the concept of a New Triad. Nevertheless, its three componentsoffensive (strike) capabilities, defenses, and infrastructurewere treated separately in that report.136 Accordingly, as analysts such as Kurt Guthe concluded, the innovative aspect of the New Triad is primarily conceptual.137 Perhaps the most important NPR initiative toward offense-defense integration was that the three elements of the New Triad would be supported by a common command and control, intelligence and planning infrastructure so it would be adaptable to the broader range of adversaries, types of conflict,
Previous Efforts
There was some conceptual and operational blending of deterrence and defense in the first nuclear age. It was often argued that missile defenses could deter an opponent from attacking because he has less confidence that his attack will succeed.133 This deterrence by denial relied on a calculus very different from deterrence based on punishment. Therefore, most of the strategic thinking and force planning of the first nuclear age compartmentalized the concepts of deterrence and defense, and ballistic missile defense was seen by many as unnecessary, costly, and possibly destabilizing. The realities of the second nuclear age have altered that outlook considerably. Writing in anticipation of the 2001 QDR and NPR, Elaine Bunn noted that the piecemeal handling
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134
135
136
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W.K.H. Panofsky and Dean A. Wilkening, Defenses against Nuclear Attack on the United States, in George Bunn and Christopher Chyba, (eds.) U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy, Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2006. M. Elaine Bunn, Strategic Nuclear Forces and National Missile Defense: Toward an Integrated Framework, in Michele A. Flournoy (Ed.) QDR 2001: Strategy-Driven Choices for Americas Security, Washington, D.C.: NDU Press, 2001, pp. 319-349. Ibid. p. 344. Others were contemplating the linking of deterrence and defense in post-Cold War strategic thinking as well. See Michael O. Wheeler, The Limits of Defense, http://www.ndu/inss/symposia/jointops99. See J.D. Crouch, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review, January 9, 2002, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/jan2002. Kurt Guthe, The Nuclear Posture Review: How is the New Triad New? Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2002, p. 5.
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and military threats138 The emphasis on command and control, intelligence and planning was specifically meant to develop secure wide-band communications between national decision makers, command centers and operational forces, to develop advanced technology programs for intelligence, and to upgrade the United States Strategic Commands (USSTRATCOM) capability for adaptive planning.139 Three years later, the judgment of a conference on Implementing the New Triad held that much work remained to be done. The conference acknowledged that the foundation of the New Triad was the C4ISR network intended to tie together the three legs of the triad to provide policymakers with the timely information needed to calibrate each of the legs to develop tailored strategies and capabilities for a given contingency.140 However, the conference then devoted its attention to judging the progress made and efforts needed on the three separate legs, rather than deliberating the ways and means to integrate and synchronize those capabilities to meet an uncertain security future. Although the following years Quadrennial Defense Review was largely silent on nuclear deterrence, defense and the issues raised by the IFPA Conference, it did reiterate the requirement for tailored deterrence.141 That appeared to be sufficient guidance for General James Cartwright, USSTRATCOM Commander, who in subsequent testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee acknowledged that the progress to date enabled and foretold the integration of nuclear deterrence and defense.142 In noting USSTRATCOMs assignment to bring the full range of offensive, defensive, command and control, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to bear against any adversary, General Cartwright pointed to a reorganized headquarters staff charged with conducting integrated and synchronized strategic level planning.
138 139 140
Although his report to Congress also tended to follow achievements along the three legs of the triad, General Cartwright also emphasized the goal of synchronization through the key enablers of command and control, intelligence and planning. Toward that end he pledged to:
Enhance collaboration among distributed STRATCOM assets as a step toward a global C2 capability connecting all triad forces. Improve the apportionment practices to manage low-density, high-demand ISR assets more efficiently and achieve persistence through the integration of those assets, capitalizing on the long dwell time of unmanned and unattended sensors. Determine essential global strike command and control services to include a more fully integrated terrestrial and space-based approach to situation awareness. Develop a more coherent global command and control capability and a network-enabled architecture to move information to the user. Transition intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance from a legacy, nation-state approach to a global enterprise tailored to meet regional needs, emphasizing unmanned vehicles to identify and track mobile targets. Improve responsive space access; integrate air and space capabilities and resource space surveillance capabilities.143
As depicted in Figure 5, a more flexible, comprehensive military strategy that fuses deterrence and defense is required in the second nuclear age. For modern nuclear states, traditional deterrence remains largely effective. For fractured, rogue, and nuclear aspirant states, and for other actors who might not be deterred by traditional means, layered missile defenses and other adequate defenses are essential. This dual requirement drives the need to derive combined deterrence and defense strategies and operational constructs that will provide decision makers and Joint Force Commanders integrated decision aids and engagement options to meet any contingency in the second nuclear age.
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142 143
Ibid. p. 8. Pentagon briefing slides, Findings of the Nuclear Posture Review, January 9, 2002. IFPA-Fletcher National Security Conference, Implementing the New Triad, Washington, D.C.: December 14-15 2005, Executive Summary, p. ix. Proceedings available at http://www.ifpa.org/pdf/IFC36.pdf . See also James J. Wirtz and Jeffery A. Larsen (eds.) Nuclear Transformation, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Including prompt global strike capabilities to defend and respond in an overwhelming manner against WMD attacks, and air and missile defensesQuadrennial Defense Review Report, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, February 6, 2006, p. 27. Statement by General James E. Cartwright, Commander, United States Strategic Command, before the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, March 29, 2006. Ibid.
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Figure 5. Integrating Deterrence and Missile Defense in the Second Nuclear Age.
HIGHER
Modern Nuclear States Effective Defense
Intensity of Attack
Effective Deterrence
LOWER
As the graphic suggests, the Joint Force Commander must be able to integrate deterrent and defense options to counter threatened nuclear use in a future scenario. That means capitalizing on joint force capabilities within and among mission areas, merging inter-/intra-theater fights into a global collaborative activity, establishing flexible and adaptable kill chains, accommodating expeditionary operations and coalition warfare, and integrating offensive-defensive capabilities.144 How might a strategy fusing deterrence and defense be implemented? Operational Synchronization, also known as offense-defense integration and multi-mission integration, offers an answer to that question.
Achieving Operational Synchronization

Operational Synchronization of deterrence and defense is important because the pace of modern conflict compresses the battlespace and compels decision-makers to select response options within severely reduced timelines. Operational Synchronization creates synergy between offensive and defensive forces through a four-phase process depicted in Figure 6:
Global Awareness and Understanding: Formulating the global situation requiring a response. Collaborative Planning: Applying existing processes, procedures, and tools in an automated, multi-mission environment to produce optimal, synchronized courses of action (COA) and options. Execution Planning: Refining these optimal COA/ response options considering cost, risks, consequences, and probability of success. Execution: Implementing the plan.
Operational Synchronization
Operational Synchronization is the synergistic employment of defensive and offensive operations, prompt and persistent ISR made possible by effective C2, and communications to forge synchronized actions through integrated engagements.145 Operational Synchronization accomplishes this by combining information throughout planning and operations to provide an array of tailored decision options that exploit the full range of military capabilities to achieve the military objectives. It is a multi-mission integration that, through command and control, synchronizes the operational elements of deterrence and defenseISR, strike and missile defense.
144 145
Global Awareness and Understanding

Global Awareness and Understanding establishes the initial conditions. During peacetime Deliberate/ What If Planning, a contingency is postulated and placed within the context of declared objectives, policy, doctrine, commanders intent, operational
USSTRATCOM Missile Defense Prioritized Capabilities List, March 2006. USSTRATCOM: Balancing the New Strategic Triad Study Plan, 1 August 2006.
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Figure 6. Operational Synchronization through Automated, Multi-mission Collaborative Planning.

Simulated Global Situation
Deliberate / What If
Global Awareness and Understanding

Policy, Doctrine Plan Orders, Directives, Guidance Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace
Commander s Intent, Rules of Engagement
Collaborative Planning
Initial COAs Wargames, Exercises Analysis, Evaluation Optimal COAs
Execution Planning
Execution
Plan Repository
Real World Global Situation

Crisis / What Is
constraints, rules of engagement and other factors that drive the intelligence preparation of the battlespace. As a real-world situation intensifies and the situation is updated with information from persistent surveillance and reconnaissance assets, Crisis/ What Is Planning is employed as and offensive and defensive force readiness are factored in.
Execution
Execution implements the offensive and defensive COA/TTP options selected based on mission objectives. During and after execution, surveillance and reconnaissance assets are tasked to collect data for analysis that will determine the degree to which the objectives were achieved. These analyses form the basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the mission, assessing the response of the adversary, replanning the next actions, preparing after action reports, and gathering lessons identified to be applied to future operations.
Collaborative Planning
Collaborative Planning produces the optimal COAs to be refined during Execution Planning. From this point in the process, planners collaboratively develop an initial set of COAs and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP). These COAs/TTPs are wargamed, tested, analyzed, optimized, and evaluated to determine performance, effectiveness, and expected outcomes relative to desired mission objectives. Optimal COAs with favorable predicted outcomes are submitted to the appropriate decision-making level and, once commanders have approved the COAs, they are released for training and mission rehearsal.
Operational Synchronization: An Illustrative Scenario

Perhaps the best way to illustrate operational synchronization is through an illustrative scenario, reflected in Figures 7 thru 10, which steps through each of the four phases described above. (Steps are indicated by numbers in the graphic illustrations.) In this scenario, we assume that a southwest Asian nation has escalated global tensions, has started to mobilize forces, and, consistent with the process above, the U.S. is deliberating its options to deter and defend. At this point in the scenario, [Step 1, Figure 7] U.S. global ISR assets have detected and are monitoring suspicious activity in southwest Asia. Sensors detect transporter and erector launcher (TEL) movement and missile transportation to a launch
Execution Planning
Execution Planning refines the final COAs/TTPs into plans to be executed. Execution Planning has the attributes of collaborative planning, except that it is typically fast reaction planning done with the most up-to-date global situation understanding, current forces, forecasted weather, and a reduced set of directly-applicable COAs/Plans/TTPs.
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Figure 7. Global Awareness and Understanding.
2 1
Indications and Warning (Intel / Surveillance) Detect TEL Movement and Missile Transport to Launch site.
USSTRATCOM Receives ISR Situational Awareness Data and Validates Collection With National Agencies
WMD: Probability>95%
USSTRATCOM
National Agencies
site. The observed data are sent to the command authorities and intelligence analysts [Step 2]. Additionally, when combined with other intelligence information, the analyses conclude with high confidence that at least one of the boosters carries a weapon of mass destruction.
Upon receiving the confirmed intelligence analysis and conclusions, [Step 3, Figure 8] USSTRATCOM alerts the President and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) who in turn [Step 4] direct Geographic Combatant Commanders (GCCs) to prepare a range of defensive and offensive options
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Figure 8. Collaborative Planning.
Distributed, Collaborative Plan Developed Using Pre-planned COAs

Collaborate, Prioritize, Evaluate
Select Course ofof Action Collect Courses Action Course of Action Approved
Combatant Commanders Collaborate to Develop a Comprehensive Package of Dominant Options

Space Operations Intelligence Surveillance/ Recon. Special Ops Mission Cyber Operations Global Strike/ Attack Operations Integrated Missile Defense
USSTRATCOM Alerts National Leadership and Combatant Commanders

Centralized Plan Management
6 7
COAs for Approval National Leadership
Approved COAs
Early Warning Radars
THAAD
USSTRATCOM
National Agencies
USPACOM
Joint Force Commander
with predicted probability of success. GCC planning staffs then [Step 5] collaboratively develop a comprehensive set of coordinated, synchronized courses of action that are then [Step 6] sent forward
for leadership review and approval. Approved COAs are returned [Step 7] to the GCCs and Execution Planning is authorized.
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Figure 9. Execution Planning.
Distributed, Collaborative Plan Developed Using Approved COAs

Collaborate, Prioritize, Evaluate
Collect Courses of Action Select Plan Plan Approved
Space Operations SATRAN / Clearing House
Execution Planning for Specific COA(s)

Intelligence Surveillance/ Recon. ISR Tasking Cyber Operations Network Attack, Defense Global Strike Conventional PGCS, ICBM Attack Ops Strike Conventional B-2, Cruise Missile Integrated Missile Defense THAAD, CG(X)
Foreign ISR Asset Included In Situational Awareness Pipeline.
Cooperative Foreign ISR
10 11
Plans for Approval National Leadership
Approved Plans
Early Warning Radars
THAAD Positioned
USSTRATCOM
National Agencies
USPACOM
Foreign Asset Alerted to Threat . Offers ISR Assistance.
Joint Force Commander CG(X) Positioned
As with the previous deliberate, adaptive, and crisis planning, GCC planning staffs [Step 8, Figure 9] plan engagement specifics for the approved COAs. As before, plans are derived collaboratively [Step 9] so that offensive and defensive actions are fully
coordinated and synchronized. The plans are then [Step 10] reviewed by appropriate leadership and [Step 11] approved and returned for any fine tuning and Execution.
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Figure 10. Execution.
Space IR Assets
BDA Space Imaging Assets BDA
Space Operations SATRAN / Clearing House
Intelligence Surveillance/ Recon ISR Tasking
Cyber Operations Network Attack, Defense
Global Strike Conventional PGCS: Transporter Erector Launcher
Attack Ops Strike Conventional B-2: To Shelter
Integrated Missile Defense THAAD, CG(X) on Alert
Cooperative Use Foreign Foreign ISR ISR Tasking
Airborne ISR Tasked Prompt Global Conventional Strike Early Warning Radars Tasked THAAD on Alert
National Leadership
USSTRATCOM
National Agencies
Airborne Conventional Strike Joint Force Commander CG(X) on Alert / Intercept
USPACOM
In this scenario, a prompt global conventional strike against the fixed launch site and an airborne conventional strike capability have been included as deterrent options. Other options include forward basing of manned or unmanned stealthy aircraft, preparation for cyber offensive and defensive actions, and contingency defense of allied interests.
Pre-planned defensive options might include the rapid deployment of a sea-based, airborne or landbased missile interceptor systems. Deterrent options could fail for a number of reasons and, if they do, the defensive options provided by a layered missile defense system would come into play.
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CONCLUSION: DETERRENCE AND DEFENSE IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE

In a recent article in Joint Force Quarterly, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael G. Mullen, argued that a new deterrence model must be based on a ready and credible nuclear and conventional force, and that it must address the challenges to national security posed by extremists.146 We believe that we have presented such a model in this paper, a model constructed of capable and credible offensive and defensive forces that, in this second nuclear age, must be increasingly seen as integrated and synchronized. The challenge of the second nuclear age is to fashion a strategy that provides efficient and effective responses to emerging threats using integrated offensive and defensive elements of military power. We might begin by turning the trends we see evolving in the second nuclear age to our advantage. That means leveraging existing capabilities and investing in and augmenting those capabilities needed to meet requirements of precise, persistent, global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, fast reaction offensive and defensive weapons with global reach, and innovative practices permitting the flexibility, agility, and adaptability needed to meet the challenges of the changing threat environment. Some steps that will take us down that path include:
The U.S. Department of Defense should use the opportunity of the pending Quadrennial Defense Review and Nuclear Posture Review to sustain and strengthen the overall credibility and capability of the nuclear triad of strategic forces. New investments should be directed toward increased awareness and understanding of emerging threats coupled with a prompt global strike capability to hold those threats at risk. A conventional intercontinental ballistic missile, either sea- or landbased, and a next-generation bomber are deterrent capabilities that should be called for in the next QDR and NPR and funded for fielding a decade from now. A layered system of global, rapidly deployable sea-, land-, air-, and space-based capabilities to defend against ballistic missiles in all phases of flight should be high on the list of the nations defense priorities. A distributed, automated, real-time, collaborative planning capability that is multi-dimensional (vertical through the strategic-operational-theater command structure and horizontal among geographic combatant commanders and joint force commanders) and multi-mission (encompassing all missions from ISR to missile defense and offensive options) needs to be implemented to support operational synchronization of deterrence and defense. Sustained support for operational planning and exercise activities conducted by the combatant commands and the service components is required to implement operational synchronization and to familiarize key decision-makers with its capabilities.
In summary, deterrence and defense can no longer be thought of and structured separately. If the United States is faced with a situation in which the U.S. homeland or that of an ally is threatened with an imminent missile attack, national decision makers must be presented with a range of offensive and defensive options to deter, prevent, or negate such a strike. Those options should be presented along a collaborative continuum of action and reaction.
146
Michael G. Mullen, Its Time for a New Deterrence Model, Joint Force Quarterly, 4th Quarter, 2008, p. 2.
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This paper has examined the policies and programs needed to underwrite new approaches to combining deterrence and defense across the spectrum of conflict. Planning towards an operational synchronization of offensive and defensive forces will provide for a future in which national decision-makers
are given a range of options to deter an enemy from striking U.S. or allied interests, or to defend in stages if deterrence fails. The second nuclear age demands a military strategy integrating the policies and practices of deterrence and defense.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ROBERT P. HAFFA, JR .
Dr. Haffa is Director of the Northrop Grumman Analysis Center. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, holds an M.A. degree from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an adjunct professor in the Government program at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining Northrop, Dr. Haffa served as a career officer in the U.S. Air Force, retiring in 1989 with the grade of Colonel. His Air Force service included operational tours in the F-4 aircraft in Vietnam, Korea, and Europe, teaching political science at the Air Force Academy, and directing a staff group supporting the Air Force Chief of Staff. At Northrop Grumman, Dr. Haffas work has included analyses of U.S. military strategy for the business sectors of the company and the development of Corporate strategic planning scenarios.
R AVI R. HICHKAD
Mr. Hichkad is a Research Associate at the Northrop Grumman Analysis Center where he provides research and analysis regarding defense policy developments and their relationship to the companys business sectors. Within the Analysis Center his work involves assessing issues and trends related to space and ISR systems, missile defense, and naval programs. Before joining Northrop Grumman, Mr. Hichkad completed graduate school and held an internship as a Research Associate at the Congressional Research Services Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade division. His post-undergraduate work involved employment with the governments of Japan and the Republic of Korea as well as experience in the private sector. Mr. Hichkad is an honors graduate of Georgetown Universitys Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and holds a masters degree in security studies. His undergraduate education was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he received a bachelors degree in anthropology, graduating with honors and highest distinction as well as Phi Beta Kappa.
DANA J. JOHNSON
Dr. Johnson is a Senior Analyst with the Northrop Grumman Analysis Center in Arlington, Virginia, responsible for assessing space and missile defense issues and trends for Northrop Grummans business sectors. Dr. Johnson has extensive experience in government and industry aerospace-related research. She joined Northrop Grumman in June 2003 from RAND where she spent almost 15 years as a national security policy analyst with a specialty in space policy and operations. While at RAND she led or participated in a number of studies in space, aerospace, and aeronautics conducted for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the Department of Defense, the Air Force, NASA, and the NRO. She also participated in several congressionally mandated commissions, including the NIMA Commission, the Commission on Roles and Missions, and the Aerospace Commission. Other prior experience includes policy and mission analysis of national security space programs in several leading aerospace companies, and diplomatic history and research at the U.S. Department of States Office of the Historian. Dr. Johnson holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Southern California, and is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, teaching space and security.
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PHILIP W. PRATT
Mr. Pratt is Director of Business Development with Northrop Grummans Information Systems Sector in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Mr. Pratts current responsibilities are in developing Warfighter-advocated approaches to integrating missile defenses into operational warfighting capabilities, Joint and Coalition BMC3ISR, Homeland Defense, and operational integration of C2 across multiple missions. Mr. Pratts thirty-seven years of industry experience has included both Department of Defense research and development and Civil Space programs. Within the DoD, he has led Air and Missile Defense systems engineering, integration, test, and analysis; developed and tested operational Missile Warning and Space Defense systems; and developed ground-based synthetic environments for integrating and testing tactical fighter embedded computer operational flight programs. In Civil Space, Mr. Pratts teams performed launch vehicle guidance, navigation, and steering equation validation and verification for Earth-orbital and inter-planetary missions. In 1999, the Internal Research and Development team Mr. Pratt co-led was awarded the TRW Chairmans Award for Innovation. Mr. Pratt holds a Masters and Bachelors Degree in Aerospace Engineering from Iowa State University, and has completed course work toward a Masters in Business Administration.
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The NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATION established the Analysis Center in 1977 to conduct objective analyses of strategic trends, defense policy, military doctrine, emerging threats and operational concepts, and their implications for the defense industry. The Analysis Center works on the leading edge in shaping U.S. strategy and defining operational requirements. The Analysis Center Papers present ongoing key research and analysis conducted by the Center staff and its associates.
Analysis Center Papers are available on-line at the Northrop Grumman Analysis Center Web site at www.analysiscenter.northropgrumman.com. For substantive issues related to this paper, please contact Robert P. Haffa, at bob.haffa@ngc.com, or call him at 703-875-0002. For copies, please call 703-875-0054.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a global defense company headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Northrop Grumman provides technologically advanced, innovative products, services and solutions in systems integration, defense electronics, information technology, advanced aircraft, shipbuilding, and space technology. With more than 120,000 employees, and operations in all 50 states and 25 countries, Northrop Grumman serves U.S. and international military, government and commercial customers.
2007 Northrop Grumman Corporation. All rights reserved.
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Deterrence and Defense in Second Nuclear Age

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A N A LY S I S

Deterrence and Defense in The Second Nuclear Age

ROBERT P. HAFFA, JR . R AVI R. HICHKAD DANA J. JOHNSON PHILIP W. PRATT

Deterrence and Defense in The Second Nuclear Age

Deterrence and Defense in The Second Nuclear Age

Deterrence and Defense in The Second Nuclear Age

DEFINING THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE

The Structure of the Second Nuclear Age

Actors and Capabilities in the Second Nuclear Age

The Modern Nuclear State

The Rogue State

The Fractured Nuclear State

The Nuclear Aspirant

The Non-State Actor

The Second Nuclear Age: Looking Forward

Figure 1. Spectrum of Conflict in the Second Nuclear Age: A Threat Landscape.

Modern Nuclear States

Fractured Nuclear States

Rogue States Nuclear Aspirants

Non-state Actors HIGHER

LOWER Likelihood of Attack

DETERRENCE IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE

Nuclear Arms Control: Constraining U.S. and Russian Nuclear Forces

Nuclear Posture Reviews: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy

Tailored Deterrence for the Second Nuclear Age

Survivability, Reliability, and Credibility

Figure 2. Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age.

Modern Nuclear States

Fractured Nuclear States

Rogue States Nuclear Aspirants

Non-state Actors HIGHER

LOWER Likelihood of Attack

Can rogue states be deterred?

CRITICAL MILITARY SITUATIONS

Prompt Global Strike

Next Generation Bomber

DEFENSE IN THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE

Missile Defense in the First Nuclear Age

Boost Defense Segment Midcourse Defense Segment

Terminal Defense Segment

Kinetic Energy Booster

Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense/ Standard Missile-3

Multiple Kill Vehicle

Ground-Based Midcourse Defense

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Patriot Advanced Capability-3

Command, Control, Battle Management & Communications

EUCOM Air Force

Designated Lead Service:

Tailoring Ballistic Missile Defenses for the Second Nuclear Age

The Modern Nuclear State

Modern Nuclear States Effective Defense

Fractured Nuclear States

Rogue States Nuclear Aspirants

Non-state Actors HIGHER

LOWER Likelihood of Attack

101 102 103

Rogue States, Nuclear Aspirants, Fractured States, and Non-state Actors

Missile Defense in the Second Nuclear Age: How Much is Enough?

115 116 117 118

Global Warning, Tracking and Handoff

Mobile, Flexible, Rapidly Deployable Interceptors

Ground, Airborne and Space-based Sensors

Missile Defense C4ISR

Sea-based Missile Defense