Dennis M. Gormley

Securing nuclear obsolescence

Except as a weapon of last resort, nuclear weapons have no legitimate or compelling military role to play in any conceivable US national security challenge. Yet some policymakers still cling to modernised nuclear weapons for specific tasks in ensuring American security. Since at least 1991, US security has depended almost exclusively on increasingly capable conventional weapons, as effective as nuclear weapons for attacking the most difficult targets. Deterrence through conventional weapons is decisively more credible than through existing or prospective nuclear alternatives. The mere possession of unprecedented conventional military superiority is not enough; a truly effective strategy hinges on perceived effectiveness. Along with addressing conventional needs, America must reformulate its position on nuclear weapons to severely diminish their relevance and solidify the longstanding international taboo against their use.

Controlling Unmanned Air Vehicles: New Challenges

Dennis M. Gormley is a Senior Consultant at the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies, based at its Washington, DC, office. His work over the last decade has focused heavily on the strategic implications of cruise missile proliferation. Richard Speier is an independent consultant on proliferation issues. While employed at the Office of Secretary of Defense, he helped design, negotiate, and implement the Missile Technology Control Regime.1

SILENT RETREAT: The Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons

The stage may be set for what could be a historic turning point in Americas reliance on nuclear weapons to meet its fundamental national security interests. Proponents of a refurbished nuclear stockpile and infrastructure are convinced that nuclear weapons will remain central to U.S. security interests, yet they admit that there is no national consensus on the need for and role of nuclear weapons. Nuclear opponents are gravely concerned that to the extent nuclear refurbishment creates a global perception that nuclear weapons remain essential instruments, it will eviscerate nuclear nonproliferation measures precisely at a time when nuclear ambitions are growing. Moreover, opponents see deterrence through advanced conventional weapons as decisively more credible than any nuclear alternative. With hopes of elevating discourse to the national level, this article examines the key current arguments pro and con within the specialist community and forecasts changes in the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next decade. It concludes with a brief prognosis on prospects for complete nuclear disarmament.

Extending network‐centric warfare to coalition crisis management and assessment

Discussions of network-centric warfare focus exclusively on the post-crisis phases of the conflict spectrum. Joint Vision 2010, the US militarys vision of an unfolding Revolution in Military Affairs, is no exception. But if there is any area where network-centric concepts and improved NATO interoperability could make a palpable difference, it is in the pre-crisis and crisis management phases of potential conflict. Decisive coalition action depends on disparate allies reaching quick consensus on threat perceptions. Future threats will spring from a growing diversity of sources (national and transnational) and will be ever more unpredictable and difficult to characterise. And given the increasing probability that Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) will play a featured role as future threats, the consequences of threat misperception and crisis mismanagement will correspondingly grow.

Conventional Force Integration in Global Strike

It should not have come as any surprise that the Bush administration’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) was greeted largely as evidence that U.S. policy makers intended to rely increasingly on nuclear weapons. Until very recently, nuclear deterrence formed the foundation of U.S. national security strategy. Nuclear weapons were expected to deter strikes not only on the American homeland but also on allies in Europe and Asia. Within the growing community of nuclear abolitionists, the end of the Cold War and the nuclear equilibrium that defined it represented a rare turning point in the longstanding quest to eliminate nuclear weapons globally. Many observers expected nuclear arsenals to dwindle in size and importance in the new strategic circumstances, and they remain sensitive to changes in U.S. nuclear weapons policy that portend the persistence of these weapons. Thus, the fact that the NPR mentions the potential need for new types of nuclear weapons to deal, for example, with targets that may not be susceptible to increasingly effective nonnuclear strike forces provoked a firestorm of criticism.

US Advanced Conventional Systems and Conventional Prompt Global Strike Ambitions

ABSTRACT The dangers and risks of employing a Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) capability greatly exceed the benefits. More suitable, if less prompt, alternatives exist to deal with fleeting targets. Even a niche CPGS capability—consisting of approximately twenty systems—carries risks, to say nothing of proposals to develop hundreds or more. Most dangerously, CPGS could stir the pre-emption pot, particularly vis-à-vis states that correctly perceive to be within the gunsights of US CPGS weapons; other states, too, may feel emboldened to emulate this US precedent and undertake their own form of prompt, long-range strike capability. Compressed circumstances surrounding such a scenario could foster unwanted erratic behavior, including the misperception that the threatening missile carries a nuclear weapon. But the true Achilless heel of the CPGS concept is the unprecedented demands it places on the intelligence community to provide decision makers with “exquisite” intelligence within an hour timeframe. Such compressed conditions leave decision makers with virtually no time to appraise the direct—and potentially unintended—consequences of their actions.