Andrew Futter

Questioning the holy trinity: Why the U.S. nuclear triad still makes sense

ABSTRACT Despite renewed enthusiasm for nuclear disarmament, a contemporary security environment far removed from that of the Cold War, and increasing budgetary pressures at home, U.S. interests continue to be best served by retaining a triad of nuclear forces. While options for a reduced force structure may appear to offer short-term political and economic expediency, in the long run a three-legged deterrent—possibly consisting of fewer delivery vehicles, operational warheads and even potentially de-alerted forces—represents the best way to balance the competing requirements of contemporary and future U.S. nuclear policy. Indeed, it may be that retaining the triad provides the most realistic method of reestablishing U.S.-Russia strategic stability, and the most credible basis for advancing the drive for global nuclear reductions, strengthening global nuclear security, and even working toward nuclear abolition.

ADVANCED US CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

The Obama administration has made a great effort to increase the role of advanced conventional weaponry in US national security thinking and practice, in part to help reinvigorate the global nuclear disarmament agenda by reducing the role played by nuclear weapons in the US defense posture. However, such a strategy is fundamentally flawed because increases in US conventional superiority will exacerbate US relative strength vis-à-vis other powers, and therefore make the prospect of a nuclear weapon-free world seem less attractive to Washingtons current and potential nuclear rivals. Consequently, it is highly likely that the impact of efforts to increase US advanced conventional superiority through ballistic missile defense and a conventional “prompt global strike” program will ensure that the Obama administration is adopting a pathway to nuclear abolition on which it is the sole traveler for the foreseeable future.

The elephant in the room: US ballistic missile defence under Barack Obama

Conventional wisdom seems to hold that under Barack Obama, the US ballistic missile defence programme has been pushed aside to allow for a refreshed domestic and international agenda. Proponents point to Obamas campaign thinking and rhetoric, the ballistic missile defence (BMD) budget cuts, the decision to end the Third Site in Europe, and the reset relations with Russia through the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) as evidence that the programme has undergone a significant period of change, retraction and rationalisation. This article argues instead that BMD has not fallen from prominence and that there is a change in focus rather than retraction of its strategic goal. Consequently, BMD continues to grow in importance as a component of US national security strategy.

Coordinating the arm swing with the pivot: nuclear deterrence, stability and US strategy in the Asia-Pacific

Abstract United States’ foreign policy towards the Asia-Pacific region is set to be fundamentally altered by two developments in Washingtons defence policy. The first is the so-called pivot towards the region in terms of overall defence strategy. The second, occurring at roughly the same time, is a move towards a far greater role for advanced conventional weaponry in the US defence posture. We analyse the interaction of these two trends and discusses a central tension between short and long-term challenges, suggesting that, contrary to current developments, either a freeze in the deployment of these weapons programmes or a return to a strategy underpinned by traditional notions of deterrence may well be necessary.

NATO, ballistic missile defense and the future of US tactical nuclear weapons in Europe

Abstract Within the next few years, NATO will need to make a collective decision about the future of US tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) in Europe. While opinion about the value of these weapons is not as split as conventional wisdom might suggest, and while NATO will remain a nuclear alliance irrespective of this decision, balancing politics and strategy looks likely to be a difficult task. This decision is made far more complex by the determination of NATO officials to link the withdrawal of these weapons to reciprocal reductions in Russian TNW in Europe, and by the possibility of substituting the key strategic and political link they provide with a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system. This article shows how we have arrived at this position, highlights the potential benefits to NATO Europe of BMD, and considers the key questions that the Alliance will face in achieving this. Ultimately, this article shows how the future of TNW in Europe is likely to be linked to whether NATO values arms cuts with Russia, or the deployment of missile defenses, as its central priority.

Democracy versus Deterrence: Nuclear Weapons and Political Integrity

This article argues that the practice and performance of nuclear deterrence can never be fully representative or democratic due to the particular pressures placed on leaders by the nuclear condition. For nuclear deterrence to be effective – and for nuclear weapons to have any political value – a leader must always convince both their electorate as well as any possible foe, that they are willing to use nuclear weapons in extremis, irrespective of whether this is their true position. In any nuclear-armed state, where politicians privately believe that using nuclear weapons is always wrong, but publicly stress that possessing nuclear weapons to use as a deterrent is right, they are forced to act dishonestly. These tensions are particularly acute in the UK context given the reliance on just one form of nuclear weapons system for deterrence and the concurrent requirement to pre-delegate secret orders through a ‘letter of last resort’. The consequences for democratic nuclear-armed states are troubling; for public morality, the personal integrity of democratic leaders, and for true democratic accountability. This article concludes that public criticism of political leaders, and citizen voting choices, ought to take account of the problem of transparency posed by policies of nuclear deterrence.

‘Cyber’ semantics: why we should retire the latest buzzword in security studies

The word ‘cyber’ has become one of the most ubiquitous and powerful concepts in contemporary security studies. Very few academic papers or workshops in the social sciences fail to touch upon the ‘c...

Conventional prompt global strike: arms racing and strategic stability in a post-unipolar world

Some two decades after the US-led Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), advances in military technology and engineering have allowed the development of an array of advanced precision conventional weaponry that is increasingly prominent at the strategic level. This includes various new global strike capabilities (including antisatellite forces), significant improvements in antimissile defenses, as well as a host of more nebulous cyber capabilities. All of these technologies have implications for how we think about and manage nuclear weapons and major power relationships, and will create, in the words of Joshua Pollack (“Boost-glide Weapons and US-China Strategic Stability,” 22.2, June 2015, pp. 155-64), “a more complex set of interactions” within an already fragile nuclear order. Taken together, these developments suggest that we are now standing on the edge of a major new era of nuclear affairs—one in which advanced conventional weapons become significant factors in the defense postures of the major nuclear-armed states—and one that will have significant implications for strategic stability and crisis management, arms control, and the global nuclear order more broadly. This is why the relative lack of scholarly attention to the issue of conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) programs has been of such concern to the handful of analysts who have been following their development in recent years. As the excellent articles in the same issue by Dennis Gormley (“US Advanced Conventional Systems and Conventional Prompt Global Strike Ambitions: Assessing the Risks, Benefits, and Arms Control Implications,” pp. 123-40), James Acton (“Russia and Strategic Conventional Weapons: Concerns and Responses,” pp. 141-54), and Pollack point out, the development of CPGS (alongside other strategic conventional weapons) has the ability to pose very serious challenges for major power relations in the years ahead. In particular, Washington’s current inability to recognize a classic “security dilemma” means that it is pressing ahead with a program which Russia views as, in Acton’s words, “profoundly threatening.” It also applies pressure to China’s strategic posture that is, according to Pollack, “potentially significant, with deleterious effects on crisis stability.” The authors are to be congratulated for raising this often-overlooked issue in contemporary strategic affairs and, importantly, for doing so in the pages of the premier scholarly journal on nuclear weapons issues. This is not just an “emerging technologies” issue but something that is of direct concern to anyone concerned with the avoidance of nuclear war. The three articles all point to this issue as being highly problematic in terms of Washington’s relations with the two states that might be thought of as its actual or potential strategic rivals: Russia and China. Yet the picture that emerges from their analysis—of an action-reaction dynamic with the potential to create a new advanced conventional

War Games redux? Cyberthreats, US–Russian strategic stability, and new challenges for nuclear security and arms control

ABSTRACT Some 30 years since the release of the Hollywood blockbuster War Games, the possibility that hackers might break into nuclear command and control facilities, compromise early warning or firing systems, or even cause the launch of a nuclear weapon has become disturbingly real. While this challenge will impact all nuclear-armed states, it appears particularly acute for the USA and Russia given their large, diverse, and highly alerted nuclear forces. The fact that east–west relations have deteriorated to a nadir perhaps not seen since the 1980s, strategic instability has increased – particularly in the wake of the Ukraine and now Syria crises – and that the nuclear arms reductions agenda appears to have reached a standstill makes this challenge particularly pressing. In this discouraging milieu, new cyberthreats are both exacerbating the already strained US–Russia strategic balance – particularly the perceived safety and security of nuclear forces – and at the same time creating new vulnerabilities and problems that might be exploited by a third party. Taken together, these dynamics add another major complication for current arms control agreements and possible future nuclear cuts, and also seem likely to increase the possibility of accidents, miscalculation, and potential unauthorised nuclear use, especially given the large number of nuclear weapons that remain on “hair-trigger” alert.

Trident Replacement and UK Nuclear Deterrence: Requirements in an Uncertain Future

A decision to replace Trident with a like-for-like system will see the UK remain in the nuclear-weapons business well into the second half of this century, but it is far from clear that reliance on a small, retaliatory nuclear capability for deterrence would be the best approach to an increasingly complex future nuclear-threat landscape. Andrew Futter argues that the requirements of deterrence are perhaps more blurred today than at any point in the nuclear age – a situation only likely to get worse. A more holistic and long-term view of UK nuclear policy is needed, with greater consideration given to how techno-military, strategic and, to a lesser extent, political-normative developments are likely to alter, if not transform, the nature of the future deterrence environment.