Abstract
As the Cold War intensified, so did attention given to developing and analyzing nuclear targeting strategies. Approaches evolved from Dulles’ “massive retaliation,” which threatened nuclear escalation of regional conflicts, to the “flexible response” that formed the backbone of US nuclear strategy during the Kennedy/McNamara years and combinations of counterforce and counter-value strategies. By the 1970s, the policy of mutually assured destruction had been refined to include the Schlesinger Doctrine, which allowed for multiple response options and a “tailored counterforce” approach and evolved into the “countervailing strategy” under President Carter, which continued to emphasize the flexibility of use options and limited counterforce capabilities. Also covered is President Carter’s decision to defer the reprocessing of spent fuel. Aspects of the Strategic Defense Initiative are covered, as well as “no first use” pledges. Brief reviews are provided for major trends of proliferation, including issues in India, Pakistan, the German-Brazilian deal, and the efforts of key US allies—South Korea and Taiwan. This leads up to the era of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START) and the emerging need for monitoring and verification to support nonproliferation. Technical portions of the chapter present additional detail on ionizing radiation and radiation detection, including physical processes and detector technologies, and relevant concepts in statistics, counting, and data analysis. Examples of radiation detection for arms control and nonproliferation are provided, along with the application of technical monitoring and verification for detection of optical, seismic, atmospheric, infrasonic, and hydroacoustic signatures of proliferation.
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Notes
- 1.
Curtis LeMay and Dale Smith, America Is In Danger (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968).
- 2.
Ibid, pp., 82–83, cited in McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival, p. 321.
- 3.
Bruce Blair, Congressional Testimony, House Armed Services Committee Hearing on Outside Perspectives on Nuclear Deterrence Policy and Posture, (March 6, 2019), p. 6.
- 4.
“The Strategy of Massive Retaliation,” Speech by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Council on Foreign Relations, Department of State Bulletin, (January 12, 1954), pp. 2–3.
- 5.
James Reston, The New York Times, January 17, 1954, Section 4, p. 8.
- 6.
“William W. Kaufmann, “The Requirements of Deterrence,” Princeton University Center of International Studies, Memorandum Number Seven (November 15, 1954).
- 7.
Ibid, p. 11.
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
See, for example, Henry Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, 1957; Robert Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy, 1957; and Paul Nitze, various articles in The New Republic and elsewhere.
- 10.
See Samuel Huntington, The Common Defense (New York, Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 88–100.
- 11.
“No Cities Speech,” Secretary of Defense McNamara, July 9, 1962.
- 12.
William Kaufmann, The McNamara Strategy (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 49.
- 13.
Key full-time RAND personnel in the McNamara Department included Charles Hitch, Alain Enthoven and Henry Rowen, and consultants Albert Wohlstetter and Kaufmann himself.
- 14.
Schlesinger’s strategy was controversial, as some determined it increased the likelihood of nuclear weapon use. See Ted Greenwood and Michael L. Nacht, “The New Nuclear Debate: Sense or Nonsense?” Foreign Affairs (July 1974), pp. 761–780.
- 15.
“Jimmy Carter’s Controversial Nuclear Targeting Directive PD-59 Declassified,” National Security Archives (George Washington University, September 14, 2012).
- 16.
Private conversation between Rowny and one of the authors, May 23, 1983. Rowny went on to serve as a key architect of Reagan’s policy of “peace through strength.” He served at the rank of Ambassador as Chief Negotiator to the US-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) and later Special Advisor on Arms Control.
- 17.
China’s posture remains unclear if its nuclear forces were attacked by precision-guided conventional weapons. At a US-China defense workshop in Beijing in June 2008 attended by one of the authors, a senior Chinese PLA official who helped draft a Chinese defense white paper of the time was asked by one of the American participants what China’s response would be under such circumstances. Rather than noting that China’s no first use pledge would still be in effect, he responded that he did not believe China had a policy that addressed this condition.
- 18.
Serge Schmemann, “Russia Drops Pledge of No First Use of Atom Arms,” The New York Times, (November 4, 1993).
- 19.
Although the objective of reassuring the allies had always been a top priority, the concept of “strategic reassurance’ was named by Michael Howard, the distinguished British historian and strategist. See Michael Howard, “Deterrence, Consensus, and Reassurance in the Defense of Europe,” in A Historic Sensibility: Sir Michael Howard and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1958–2019 (London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2020), pp. 251–272.
- 20.
Ibid, p. 260.
- 21.
Ibid, p. 262.
- 22.
“U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe,” Federation of American Scientists, (November 1, 2019).
- 23.
Kyle Mizokami, “The History of U.S. Nuclear Weapons in South Korea,” (September 10, 2017).
- 24.
Soviet Strategic Defense Programs October 1985, Federation of American Scientists, https://fas.org/irp/dia/product/ssdp.htm, accessed August 5, 2020.
- 25.
Nike Zeus: The U. S. Army’s First ABM, Missile Defense Agency, 09-MDA-4885 (20 OCT 09).
- 26.
Ballistic Missile Defense: Past and Future, Jacques S. Gansler, Center For Technology And National Security Policy National Defense University Washington, DC (April 2010).
- 27.
Ibid.
- 28.
Ibid.
- 29.
Cited in Thomas Schelling, Nobel Prize in Economics Acceptance Speech, December 8, 2005.
- 30.
An excellent reference on MIRVs is Ted Greenwood, Making the MIRV (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977).
- 31.
See Helmut Sonnenfeldt, “The Meaning of Détente,” Naval War College Review, 1975, Vol. 28, No. 4. Much later, in October 2009, at a Defense Policy Committee meeting, Kissinger observed that “arms control is not about arms control,” but rather about forging more productive political relationships. Witnessed by one of the authors when he served as Assistant Secretary of Defense.
- 32.
The details of the Vladivostok agreements are discussed in Michael Nacht, “The Vladivostok Accords and American Technological Options,” Vol. 17, Issue Number 3 (1975).
- 33.
Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), p. 45.
- 34.
Robert Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 211–214.
- 35.
Presidential Documents: Jimmy Carter, 1977, “Nuclear Power Policy: Statement by the President on His Decisions Following a Review of U.S. Policy,” (April 7, 1977).
- 36.
Country Nuclear Fuel Cycle Profiles, 2nd Edition, IAEA Technical Report Series No. 425, (Vienna, 2005).
- 37.
Excellent references on these programs are George Perkovich’s India’s Nuclear Bomb (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) and Feroz Khan’s Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2012).
- 38.
Reported in Maureen Dowd, “Where’s The Rest of Him?” The New York Times, (November 18, 1990).
- 39.
“START I at a Glance,” Arms Control Association, (February 2019).
- 40.
Semiconductor Detectors, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, January 2010, accessed at https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1122/ML11229A683.pdf.
- 41.
John J. Zucca. “Science in Support of International Weapons Treaties,” LLNL Science & Technology Review, (September 2010).
- 42.
William Dunlop. “Sharing the Challenges of Nonproliferation,” LLNL Science & Technology Review, (September 1997).
- 43.
Ibid.
- 44.
Ibid.
- 45.
Caryn Meissner. “A Discriminating Device to Detect Antineutrinos,” LLNL Science & Technology Review, (September 2010).
- 46.
Ibid.
- 47.
Charles Carrigan, “2009 Noble Gas Field Operations Test: Toward detecting “the smoking gun” during an on-site inspection”, CTBTO Spectrum (15 Nov 2010).
- 48.
Steven Kreek and Charles Carrigan. “Supporting an Exercise of Global Importance,” LLNL Science & Technology Review June 2015.
- 49.
Carrigan.
- 50.
Arnie Heller, “A Powerful New Tool to Detect Clandestine Nuclear Tests,” LLNL Science & Technology Review (January 1997).
- 51.
Ibid.
- 52.
- 53.
- 54.
- 55.
Los Alamos sensors watch for potential nuclear explosions (January 31, 2018), https://www.lanl.gov/discover/news-stories-archive/2018/January/0131-vela-to-cubesats.php, accessed August 8, 2020.
- 56.
- 57.
Ibid.
- 58.
- 59.
Paul G. Richards and Won-Young Kim, “Advances in Monitoring Nuclear Weapon Testing” Scientific American, (March 1, 2009).
- 60.
John J. Zucca, September 2010.
- 61.
Stephen Myers. “Seismic Research Making Waves,” LLNL Science & Technology Review, (June 2015).
- 62.
Ibid.
- 63.
Ibid.
- 64.
Ibid.
- 65.
John J. Zucca, “Forensic Seismology Supports the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,” LLNL Science & Technology Review (September 1998).
- 66.
Ibid.
- 67.
Ibid.
- 68.
Paul G. Richards and Won-Young Kim, “Advances in Monitoring Nuclear Weapon Testing” Scientific American, (March 1, 2009).
- 69.
Westinghouse Technology Systems Manual Section 16.0 Radiation Monitoring System, accessed at www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1122/ML11223A335.pdf
- 70.
- 71.
- 72.
Paul G. Richards and Won-Young Kim.
- 73.
John. J. Zucca, September 1998.
- 74.
Mark Wolverton, “How International Monitors Spot Nukes and Other Rumblings,” MIT Technology Review, September 10, 2015.
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Nacht, M., Frank, M., Prussin, S. (2021). Technical, Political, and Strategic Evolution of Deterrence and Arms Control. In: Nuclear Security. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75085-5_4
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