1. Deterrence and the Risk of Nuclear War
1.1 Deterrence
1.2 Risk of Nuclear War
The theory of nuclear deterrence has been fatally undermined. At the same time there is a growing awareness of the real and substantial danger that nuclear weapons will be used.
Deterrence, which was responsible for the nuclear peril of the last 50 years, has been overtaken by the changed political landscape, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of new nuclear weapon states. At the same time the theory has been ridiculed by many of its former advocates.
Today one of the most powerful critics is General Lee Butler. After a career in Strategic Air Command, Lee Butler was in operational command of all US nuclear weapons from 1992 to1994. Since retiring he has argued very strongly for the abolition of the weapons he was once in charge of. He says that "(deterrence) was based on a litany of unwarranted assumptions, unprovable assertions and logical contradictions. It suspended rational thinking about the ultimate aim of national security to ensure the survival of the state".1
In a statement which could well be addressed to the Ministry of Defence. Lee Butler has said: ".... the Cold War lives on in the minds of those who cannot let go the fears, the beliefs, and the enmities born of the nuclear age. They cling to deterrence, clutch its tattered promise to their breast, shake it wistfully at bygone adversaries and balefully at new or imagined ones. They are gripped still by its awful willingness not simply to tempt the apocalypse but to prepare its way." 2
The columnist Peregrine Worsthorne used to promote the bomb, but he now argues for disarmament and criticises his former stance - "That an individual could proudly say this -give me liberty or give me death - is more than understandable. But we armchair Cold War warriors in the West were saying more than this. We were saying that the whole human race, the greater part of which was neutral in the Cold War, should be put at risk to preserve Western liberty. How could we have believed anything so preposterous ?"3
We now know that the world came even closer to nuclear war in the 1960s than was realised at the time. The former US Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara, has held meetings with his Soviet counterparts. He discovered that the US had completely misjudged the situation on the ground during the Cuban missile crisis. America had considered an all out attack on Cuba, not knowing that there were Soviet battlefield nuclear weapons on the island and that the Russian Generals had been given authority to use them.4
Those key players who have turned against deterrence are not only saying that it is now irrelevant. They are also saying that nuclear deterrence was wrong in the past, that it placed the world in great peril and it is only by luck that we came through the Cold War without a nuclear holocaust. Having survived so far by chance, they are determined that the dangers which persist are removed.
Today there are new dangers of nuclear war in South Asia following the nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan. At least one military analyst has said that now each side has a nuclear deterrent, the risk of war in the subcontinent has been reduced.5 This argument is consistent with the perverted logic of the Cold War, but totally divorced from reality. If we followed this "deterrence" model then, in every future international conflict, both sides should arm themselves with nuclear weapons.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists maintains a "Doomsday clock", which illustrates their assessment of how close we are to nuclear war. Having moved the hand further away from midnight at the end of the Cold War, they have moved it closer and closer in recent years. Initially in 1995 when it became clear that the nuclear weapons powers had not responded to the new climate and were holding on to their huge arsenals. Secondly in 1998 in response to the nuclear tests carried out by India and Pakistan
Throughout the Cold War, America and Russia kept huge arsenals of nuclear weapons poised to strike each other in a global suicide pact of mutual assured destruction. The end of the Cold War has resulted in some progress towards arms control. Today the US and Russian nuclear force commanders can visit each other's bunkers and missile silos.6 These exchanges are important. But they are also a symbol of the ridiculous situation we are now in. However much the political climate has changed, the nuclear stand-off has continued. The terrible truth is that both Generals still keep thousands of nuclear weapons ready to be launched at minutes notice at their old adversary.
While there are fewer weapons today, those that remain are more accurate and more effective. The number of US Trident submarines armed with D5 missiles is increasing and a new B61-11 earth penetrating bomb is being deployed.7 Each year the US conducts a major exercise which rehearses global nuclear war. These Global Guardian exercises include the actual deployment of Trident submarines.
Bruce Blair, a former US missile officer, urges that nuclear forces must be taken off alert. He has warned the US Congress about the current plight of Russia's nuclear forces: "Growing reliance on intentional quick use (of nuclear weapons) in a crisis and growing susceptibility to unintentional use means that the nuclear situation is more unstable and perilous today than it was during the Cold War." 8
The decline in Russian conventional forces has meant that their Defence policy places greater emphasis on nuclear arms. They have also adopted a "launch on warning" posture, partly because of the accuracy and short flight times of US Trident missiles. The Russian military feel that their missiles are vulnerable to being destroyed by a US first strike and so their own nuclear response system is kept on a hair trigger alert. 9
Two specific cases show how dangerous this is. The first was during the political crisis in Russia in 1991 when Russian intelligence in Cuba wrongly reported that US nuclear forces had increased their state of alert.10 This message could easily have resulted in rocket forces being put on the brink of an attack. Fortunately it was ignored.
The second scare was when the Norwegians fired a scientific rocket in 1995. The letter notifying the Russians had been ignored. When a radar operator detected the launch he thought the missile could reach Moscow. The black box which follows Yeltsin everywhere was activated. A message was sent to the nuclear forces to increase their state of readiness. Only then was it realised that the rocket was harmless.11
It would be wrong to conclude from these examples that there is a Russian threat and that we must have the bomb to keep it at bay. The danger which exists arises from the weapons themselves and from the failure, so far, to use the political window of opportunity for disarmament. The current situation highlights what was always the case - that nuclear weapons are the problem, not the solution.
Notes
1. The risks of nuclear deterrence, General Lee Butler, National Press Club, 2 Feb 1998
2. ibid
3. The Old Bombers who are now for Banning the Bomb, Peregrine Worsthorne, Spectator, 7 Mar 1998
4. The US knew about the medium range missiles on Cuba but not the battlefield nuclear weapons which could have been used in response to an invasion. Reflections on War in the 21st century, Robert McNamara, speech in Edinburgh, 8 Apr 1998.
5. Colonel Michael Dewar of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
6. Visit of General Habiger, Commander of US Strategic Command to Russian nuclear facilities, US DoD News Briefing, 4 Nov 1997
7. Overkill is Not Ddead, Brian Hall, New York Times, 14 Mar 1998
8. Statement to US Congress by Bruce Blair, 13 Mar 1997. Russia declared in 1982 that they would not be the first to use nuclear weapons, but this was repudiated in 1993
9. ibid
10. Prospects for the unsanctioned use of Russian Nuclear Weapons, CIA, Sep 1996
11. Washington Post, 15 Mar 1998