(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. Eight Deadly Nuclear Sins)
The critics of U.S. nuclear modernization have a set of nuclear catechisms of which they accuse America’s nuclear enterprise of being guilty. The latest rendition of this was by Jimmy Tobias in the Nation magazine. He cites eight deadly nuclear sins. They are: (1) The U.S. is starting an arms race; (2) America’s allies are contributing to the arms race as well; (3) The U.S. is needlessly expanding its nuclear arsenal; (4) For dozens of American aerospace companies, nuclear weapons are simply a profit making business of $1.7 trillion; (5) ICBMs are on a dangerous hair trigger alert; (6) ICBMs are nothing more than a sponge to draw enemy missiles away from hitting U.S. cities but would still lead to tens of millions of U.S. deaths; (7) The U.S. is not pursuing arms control with enough vigor; and (8) Threatening retaliation as the basis for nuclear deterrence is wrongheaded and must be discarded.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Well first he actually starts off by—albeit grudgingly– getting one thing right. He cites Dr. Jil Hruby, the recently retired Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administrator, laying out the nuclear threats to the United States: Russia, Hruby said, “has in recent years stationed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus; withdrawn its ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and lowered its threshold for nuclear weapons use. It also seems to be exploring new nuclear-weapons delivery technologies, including space-based weapons. Further south, China is rapidly expanding the size of its nuclear arsenal and appears to be moving away from a no-first-use policy for launching nuclear weapons. North Korea persists in building up its nuclear program, rattling the region with its regular missile tests, while Pakistan is developing its own intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, and Iran continues to enrich uranium.”
But then Tobias turns to blaming America and its allies for contributing to what he describes as a nuclear “disequilibrium.” But while Russia, China and North Korea are adding hundreds of warheads annually, the only U.S. ally adding warheads is India, which one analysis has guessed that New Delhi has added all of 8 warheads to its arsenal since 2023, reaching 172 warheads compared, for example, to 160 in Pakistan.
The U.S. on the other hand is adding no new warheads to its strategic long-range nuclear arsenal. The nuclear program of record, fully adopted by Congress in December 2010, builds only to the 2010 New START arms control level of an official 1550 warheads (but actually around 1800-1900 if bomber weapons are actually counted.) No new theater nuclear weapons are being acquired, and all such weapons except a couple of hundred gravity bombs in Europe were eliminated unilaterally by President George H. W. Bush in 1991 in the UPI, or Unilateral Presidential Initiative.
In the decade after the end of the USSR, the United States stopped production of the Ohio class submarine, the Peacekeeper (MX) missile, the SICBM or Midgetman missile, and the B2 bomber. The U.S. did continue production of rocket motors for the D-5 missile and begin to extend the life of the Minuteman missile. The D-5 motors were the only such rocket motor production line open in the country for civilian and military space purposes or for the U.S. nuclear Triad.
In 2002 and 2010, the U.S. and Russia signed two arms control deals that brought strategic force levels in the United States down from 6000 to 1550 warheads. While Russia agreed to these deals, current strategic force levels held by Moscow now exceed the New START numbers considerably, even as all inspections required by the New START agreement of 2010 have been terminated by Moscow.
So, who is doing the arms racing? Certainly not the United States and its allies.
Russia embarked on its massive nuclear modernization effort at least as far back as April 1999 when President Yeltsin ordered the development of 10,000 low-yield, small, highly accurate battlefield nuclear weapons, along with the full modernization of Moscow’s strategic nuclear forces. As of today, U.S. Strategic Command says that Russia’s modernization force acquisition is 92% complete.
China’s decision to build up a nuclear force numbering well over one thousand nuclear weapons was probably made no later than 2008-9. According to Dr. Chris Yeaw, Dr. Rich Fischer, and Dr. Mark Schneider, China is building to a force of nuclear weapons exceeding 3000 by 2035-40, including dual use theater missile forces and a complete Triad of strategic nuclear weapons.
North Korea is adding to its nuclear arsenal even as the Republic of Korea remains within the confines of the NPT or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and under the U.S. nuclear deterrent umbrella which Tobias wants to jettison.
Now does the U.S. nuclear force modernization cost too much?
Here again the numbers used by critics don’t make sense. The $300 billion estimate by Tobias for 100 B21 bombers is nonsense. The nuclear bomber cost is only a proportion of the conventional force, or the 20 bombers assigned to the nuclear mission. An adjusted bomber cost plus $140 billon for Sentinel, $130 billion for Columbia and $30 billion for upgrading the D-5 SLBM brings the platform costs to around $325 billion over three decades, to which one can add the costs of replacing the warheads and nuclear command and control. Both submarines and ICBMs are projected to last to 2070-80 which implies an average annual acquisition cost of less than $10 billion. Total costs for the next 30 years for the nuclear platforms and warheads and NC3 will probably reach $400 billon, with the remaining 2/3rds of all costs consisting of operations, maintenance and sustainment of the current legacy forces. Which must be spent unless the U.S. goes out of the nuclear deterrence business.
Is our ICBM force dangerous or destabilizing?
ICBMs are in key respects actually the most stabilizing part of our nuclear deterrent. The ICBM force has been on alert now for over 60 years and not once has the President ordered a missile to be launched. In fact, President Kennedy said the initial deployment of the Minuteman missile at exactly the same day the U.S. intelligence community discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba, was “my ace in the hole,” that allowed the U.S. to pressure Moscow to withdraw their missiles from Cuba and avoid nuclear Armageddon. And having a new Minuteman missile, solid fueled, on alert 99% of the time, able to reach targets throughout the USSR, also enabled the U.S. to withdraw its liquid fueled rockets from Turkey which was part of the secret deal made with Moscow.
The Minuteman is not a sponge, but a target set impossible for Moscow to credibly threaten given the U.S. geographical expanse of the 400 Minuteman silos compared to Russia’s arsenal of 1550-1800 nuclear warheads—assuming that Russia is complying with the New START agreement. If Moscow breaks out of the 2010 agreement, the U.S. does have the ability to add warheads to both its ICBM and SLBM arsenal, up to around a new total of 3100 warheads over a period of four-plus years. And the U.S. could protect its silos with the Golden Dome missile defense, which increases the U.S. retaliatory capability and thus stabilizing deterrence for the United States and its allies.
To launch a Minuteman missile requires a launch conference to be held by top defense officials assessing an enemy missile launch, followed by an assessment of the target where the enemy missile will strike, and only then after such real confirmation, does the President decide if and when to launch a U.S. retaliatory strike. And in the event of an enemy strike of U.S. assets overseas, the issue of prompt launch does not even arise.
Is the U.S. not seeking arms control?
Here the record is clear. The U.S. initiated the SALT process. Moscow insisted on banning missile defenses, even as offensive nuclear arsenals grew multifold under the SALT process. It was the United States that pursued the START reductions process and the INF treaty. And it was the USSR and then Russia that violated them all.
The United States put the Moscow or SORT treaty on the table and New START. The Trump administration has indeed noted that with major further reductions in nuclear weapons, the U.S. and others would not need to completely modernize our nuclear arsenals. But it takes two to tango, and in this world, it will take at least three (China, Russia and the U.S.) to tango. And the Trump administration has been clear: the only current alternative in the absence of major arms control or abolition, is to fully modernize its deterrent under a peace through strength umbrella.
But China and Russia have shown little interest in arms control; China said if the U.S. reduced its arsenal unilaterally to China’s level, they might begin to talk. As for Russia, much of their arsenal including thousands of warheads, are not even limited by the New START agreement, while only a few hundred theater weapons in the U.S. arsenal aren’t covered. Experts now estimate that Russia and China combined will have more than four-fold the level of nuclear weapons as the United States under current trends by 2035.
Ending Retaliatory Nuclear Deterrence
Finally, this essay calls for the U.S. to jettison its nuclear retaliatory doctrine for deterring the use of conventional, chemical, biological or nuclear weapons against the United States. Implicitly that would have the United States rely solely on its conventional capability to deter our enemies. But as every miliary expert has testified to Congress, relying on conventional force in the face of an adversary using nuclear weapons, does not hold water. All the assumptions the U.S. makes re prevailing with conventional forces go out the window. The U.S. would lose every fight. Deterrence thus disappears and enemy aggression then becomes a fait accompli. In short, jettisoning our current deterrent strategy is a nuclear sin of the first order.
Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.
