Deterrence to Protect Vital Interests at a Distance

Even if the threat of nuclear retaliation is sufficient to forestall an "out of the blue" attack against one's home territory, deterring threats to other vital inter­ests, especially at a substantial distance, poses far greater problems; not the least of these is how to do so credibly without materially increasing the probabili­ties of escalation into a general war. The contemporary situation in the Middle East illustrates some of the difficulties. The area includes several vital Western interests, notably the security of Israel and access to the oil upon which many Western industrial economies—including France, West Germany, Italy, and Ja­pan—are heavily dependent. The Nixon-Kissinger policy of arming and relying upon Iran to maintain stability in the region proved bankrupt when the Shah's regime in Teheran was replaced in 1978 by a fundamentalist Islamic one that had little interest either in serving Western interests or in preserving stability in the region. Fearing repetition of events in Iran, the Saudi Arabian ruling family is unwilling to take on the role of regional "policeman"; and, furthermore, it has linked its relations with the West to the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the issue of a homeland for the Palestinians. Complicating the problem is the fact that the Soviet Union has provided arms to several of the most radical regimes in the area, including Libya, Iraq, and Syria; moreover, it now has a modern "bluewater" navy able to operate in both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, as well as allies in Ethiopia and North Yemen.

²⁸ Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966). See also Alexander L. George, David K. Hall, and William E. Simons, The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy: Laos, Cuba, Vietnam (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971).

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In the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Carter administra­tion announced formation of a "rapid deployment force"; but even those who favor an American military presence in the Persian Gulf region question whether it can ever become effective, either as a credible deterrent or as a fighting force. Efforts to enlist NATO cooperation to secure oil routes have elicited a cool response from most Western European nations, including those most dependent upon oil imports. Moreover, Western allies were increasingly at odds on the Palestinian issue. Military bases may be acquired in the region, but not without some risks of increasing rather than ameliorating existing political instabilities. Finally, an expanded American naval presence in the Persian Gulf area may serve as a deterrent against efforts to disrupt oil-tanker traffic, as well as a "tripwire" against overt Soviet moves toward the oil fields. In the latter case, failure of deterrence might result in an escalation of conflict to the nuclear level, much as would the outbreak of war in central Europe.²⁹ Moreover, a limited western military presence, whether in the form of bases or an expanded naval task force, could not effectively prevent other threats to oil supplies— for example, an expanded Iran-Iraq war that results in the destruction of both nations' oil industries; sabotage of or guerrilla attacks against vulnerable oil facilities; or revolutionary activity against some of the conservative regimes in the region, notably in Saudi Arabia.

Targeting Policy

Considerable debate has been generated among strategists over the most appro­priate target of threat. The debate has generally centered on the probable effects of threatening military targets (counterforce strategy) or population centers (countercity strategy). In assessing the merits of these doctrines, we can again apply our criteria of effectiveness; that is, what do these targeting strategies contribute to the credibility and stability of strategic deterrence?

Counterforce strategy received its first authoritative articulation in an address by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to the NATO meeting at Athens in 1962. It has since been given new emphasis by Defense Secretary James Schlesinger's statement of January 10, 1974, and by Presidential Directive 59, issued by the Carter administration in 1980. The stated intent of counterforce is to impress upon potential adversaries that, in the event of war, (1) their strategic striking forces would be destroyed; (2) they would thus suffer a military defeat; but (3) every effort would be made to minimize casualties among noncom-batants. Another purpose is to reduce the damage should a nuclear war break out. Hence, a counterforce targeting policy is usually associated with the strategic doctrine of "damage limitation."

Counterforce strategy, according to its advocates, is a more credible deterrent than a countercity doctrine because an authoritarian regime places a

²⁹ NATO and Warsaw Treaty Organization forces have more than 6,000 tactical nuclear weapons—deliverable by aircraft, short-range missiles, and artillery—deployed in Europe.

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higher value on its military forces than on the lives of its citizens. Thus, a threat to destroy its ability or will to wage war will prove more effective than a threat against other types of targets, including urban or industrial centers. Counterforce strategists further assert that should deterrence fail and a nuclear war actually break out, striking at the adversary's military targets rather than cities is the least immoral policy, not only because it minimizes the loss of civilian lives in an actual war, but also because it is the only policy short of pacifism that is consistent with the "just war" doctrine that noncombatants must not be held hostage. Such a targeting doctrine also gives the opponent an incen­tive to avoid cities, thereby potentially reducing loss of life on both sides. And even if enemy leaders are unwilling to spare population centers, their forces, which will have been reduced by a counterforce retaliation, will possess less capacity to strike at cities.

Critics of counterforce doctrines emphasize that the policy cannot be totally divorced from a number of first-strike implications. For example, a strike at the adversary's strategic weapons will clearly prove more effective if under­taken before those weapons have been launched. Although a decision to strike the enemy's cities may be delayed—as targets, their value does not decrease with time—the value of a strike against targets is highest before the enemy has launched any of its forces and is progressively reduced until all bombers or missiles have been launched. Both parties in a crisis will assess the situation in this manner; and each knows that the other is making the same calculations, thereby significantly heightening incentives for a first strike.

Counterforce strategy also serves as an impetus to both quantitative and qualitative arms races. The force level necessary for posing a credible threat to targets other than military ones (assuming that they are unprotected by an effective antiballistic missile system, a point we will examine in more detail later) is finite and relatively easy to calculate. As stationary targets incapable of concealment, cities and industrial sites provide the opponent's leaders with little incentive to increase their arms stockpiles indefinitely; nor do such "soft" targets provide much incentive for continually upgrading strategic forces by replacing older weapons with faster, larger, or more accurate ones. Hence, a countercity strategy, associated with a doctrine of "mutual assured destruction," is compatible with finite deterrent capabilities. On the other hand, a nation committed to a counterforce strategy has considerable reason to build up stock­piles; the greater one's strategic superiority, the greater the likelihood of an effective strike against military targets. The adversary's most predictable re­sponse will be to seek safety through (1) sheer numbers, by acquiring sufficient quantities of weapons to "ride out" the worst possible attack; (2) additional steps to protect existing weapons (for example, by deploying land-based missiles on mobile launchers); or—and most likely—(3) both quantitative and qualitative measures. The result of each response to the other side's moves will be an arms race.

An effective counterforce capability against protected strategic systems

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requires (1) overwhelming strategic superiority, (2) increasingly accurate intelli­gence and guidance systems to locate and pinpoint strikes against such targets,³⁰ and (3) command, control, communications, and intelligence (C³I) capabilities that will survive even in the midst of a nuclear war. Efforts toward achievement of this position will succeed only in the unlikely case that the adversary fails to increase his forces. By 1964, Secretary McNamara conceded that the value of striking at Soviet ICBM sites was "questionable" in the light of expected increases in Soviet missile-launching submarine forces. If, however, any country should achieve the ability to destroy the retaliatory capabilities of its potential enemies, the mutual deterrence system will become highly unstable. The latter may be tempted to launch a preventive attack, and the former, aware of the temptation, will have added incentive to unleash a preemptive strike.

If a counterforce strategy is to accomplish its objective of saving the maximum number of lives in case of a failure in deterrence, both sides must move their military targets as far as possible from urban population centers— that is, to take effective steps to deal with the "colocation problem." To assume that, under conditions of a major war, either side would spare military targets in order to save cities is to attribute to leaders of nations at war a degree of magnanimity rarely encountered even in less deadly circumstances. This require­ment is virtually impossible to meet in densely populated areas such as Europe; even within the United States, many key military targets are located in or near major urban centers, although, in recent years, public pressures have at times been successful in requiring that military installations be placed away from cities and suburban areas.

Perhaps the most serious problem in counterforce strategy is that neither side believes the other will act with the necessary restraint. Secretary of Defense McNamara had expressed his belief that major population centers would be included as targets in any nuclear attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, and a Soviet spokesman has dismissed as not believable stated intentions to use "humane" methods of warfare that would spare Soviet cities.³¹ The deploy­ment of highly accurate missiles with multiple warheads—some 308 SS-18 mis­siles by the USSR, and the Minuteman II and Titan II missiles, as well as the controversial MX missile system by the United States—appears to be a major step toward acquiring the ability to destroy the other side's retaliatory capabili­ties. Although the Vladivostok interim agreement of 1974 and the subsequent SALT II Treaty limit each nation to 2,250 bombers and missiles, of which 1,320 can be armed with multiple warheads, it has by no means ensured that neither

³⁰ Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), in many respects the deterrent that comes closest to satisfying our criteria of credibility and stability, can be used only against cities, because the missiles are not at present sufficiently accurate to threaten missiles located in "hardened" underground silos. Missiles ultimately placed in the next generation of strike submarines—the Tri­dents—will have far greater accuracy.

³¹ Kaufmann, The McNamara Strategy (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 93; N. Talensky, "Antimissile Systems and Disarmament," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 21 (February 1965), 26-29.

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one can acquire sufficient "silo-busting" capabilities to threaten land-based mis­siles and perhaps to make a counterforce first strike a genuine or perceived threat. The failure of the SALT II Treaty to be ratified enhances the prospects for a costly arms race to acquire full counterforce capabilities.

The United States and the Soviet Union each have at most about 200 major population or industrial targets. Thus, even if several missiles are assigned to each such target, there will be a large surplus of deliverable weapons that is certain to be given counterforce missions. Thus, even in the unlikely event that the SALT II Treaty is ratified, it will almost certainly be used in both Moscow and Washington to justify an enormously expensive qualitative arms race.

At present, both the United States and the Soviet Union appear to have acquired the diversified nuclear arsenal for an "all-options" policy that would permit retaliatory strikes against both an adversary's cities and its military targets. It is not unlikely that this state of affairs has been brought about less by a calculated assessment of the arguments for and against the two strategic doctrines than by a process of bureaucratic politics in Washington and Moscow. That is, rather than making a hard choice between the counterforce and countercity viewpoints, both the United States and the USSR have reached a "compromise" by accepting both views—and acquiring the hardware necessary for both.

The debate over targeting doctrines amply illustrates the difficulties of trying to apply ethical criteria to questions of defense policy. Should war break out, any effort to spare lives as envisioned by adovcates of counterforce is clearly desirable. But if adherence to such a targeting policy destabilizes deterrence through heightening the reciprocal fear of surprise attack, can claims of greater morality be sustained?³²

Active Defense (Antiballistic Missile Systems)

A potentially significant component of deterrent capabilities is the ability to protect targets by destroying attacking airplanes or missiles before they reach their destination. Credibility is enhanced if, owing to an effective active defense system, the deterrer can threaten a potential aggressor with the knowledge that the costs of a counterstrike can be reduced if not eliminated.

Up to and during World War II, active defense could prove effective by inflicting only limited damage to the attacker. During the Battle of Britain in 1940, an attrition rate of 10 percent eventually forced the Luftwaffe to abandon its policy of attempting to bomb England into submission. In heavy Allied raids

³² For thoughtful discussions of the relationship of ethics to strategy, see Theodore Roszak, "A Just War Analysis of Deterrence," Ethics, 73 (1963), 100-109; David B. Abernethy, "Morality and Armageddon," in Public Policy, eds. John D. Montgomery and Arthur Smithies, 13 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964); Arthur Lee Burns, Ethics and Deterrence: A Nuclear Balance without Hostage Cities, Adelphi Paper No. 69 (London: Institute for Strategic Studies, 1970); and Michael "Walzer, Just and Unjust War (.New York-. Basic Books, \9T7~).

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on Schweinfurt during the summer and autumn of 1943, Germany's ability to down one-sixth and one-quarter of the attacking aircraft was a major victory for the defense.³³

Intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with thermonuclear weapons have added substantially to the burdens of defense. Identification and destruction of a missile is a considerably more difficult task than that of downing even a supersonic bomber. A second problem is even more serious. The destructive capabilities of thermonuclear weapons and the size of existing stockpiles are such that even an attrition rate of 90 percent (which is currently regarded by virtually all the ablest scientific experts as impossible) cannot prevent utter devas­tation of most targets.

As a consequence, there is little likelihood that any ABM system can provide protection for cities, industrial sites, airfields, or other "soft" targets. The case for ABMs, then, rests on their ability to provide protection for retalia­tory forces such as missiles in underground silos. Whereas the ability to destroy, for example, 50 percent of attacking missiles is totally inadequate to protect cities, such an attrition rate might be sufficient to deter a potential attacker from attempting a counterforce strike against retaliatory forces. But even in this more limited role, the case for ABMs is not unambiguous. The history of military technology suggests that advances in defensive weapons are usually superseded by developments in offensive capabilities. The ABM is not an excep­tion. It is susceptible to penetration by means of decoys, multiple-warhead (MIRV) missiles, evasion by maneuverable (MARV) missiles, or nuclear blasts that render its complex radar systems ineffective.³⁴

Finally, as a number of defense analysts have pointed out, ABMs tend to be more useful to the initiator of a nuclear exchange. Thus, their deployment has some first-strike implications that would tend to reinforce the adversary's disbelief about a declaratory second-strike policy.³⁵

These difficulties have not, however, been sufficient to prevent deploy­ment of ABM systems. The Soviet Union has installed sixty-four "Galosh" missile

³³ Hans J. Morgenthau, "The Four Paradoxes of Nuclear Strategy," American Political Science Review, 5 (1964), 123-35.

³⁴ Abram Chayes and Jerome B. Weisner, eds., ABM: An Evaluation of the Decision to Deploy an Anhbalhstic Missile System (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), pp. 17-24, 57-60. The case for ABMs is developed in D.G. Brennan and Johan J. Hoist, Ballistic Missile Defence: Two Views, Adelphi Papers, No. 43 (London: Institute for Strategic Studies, 1967).

³⁵ There are a number of parallels in this respect between ABMs and civil defense programs. That is, both may save some lives in the case of war, but neither is without first-strike implications.

Except in periods of intense international crisis, such as during the Berlin crisis of 1961, civil defense programs have received relatively little attention in most countries. China appears to have the only large-scale civil defense system currently in existence. Mao Tse-tung's 1973 New Year's message extolled the Chinese people to "dig tunnels deeper, store grain everywhere and accept no hegemony." Harry Gelber, Nuclear Weapons and Chinese Policy, Adelphi Papers, No. 99 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1973), p. 16. Some American defense analysts have recently proposed that a major civil defense effort be undertaken, citing Soviet steps to protect populations and industries. But there is no consensus among western analysts on the magnitude of the Soviet civil defense effort, or even on the practical value of a shelter program.

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launchers around Moscow, and a second ABM system has been placed around Leningrad. The American version of the ABM has had a checkered history. When Defense Secretary McNamara announced in 1967 that the Nike-Sentinel system would be deployed in fifteen sites, it was described as protection against the expected threat of Chinese ICBMs. Two years later, the Nixon administration declared that a more limited "Safeguard" system would serve to protect two Minutemen sites; it would also be a bargaining counter in arms-control negotia­tions with the USSR.

Vocal debates on the ABM issue abated in 1972 with the SALT I Treaty between the United States and the USSR. That agreement limited each nation to two ABM sites, and subsequently the United States chose not even to finish its one site in North Dakota. However, as offensive missiles have become more accurate, possibly threatening land-based retaliatory forces, ABM proponents have advocated new efforts in this direction, even if it means scrapping the SALT I Treaty. The Reagan administration is considering a new ABM program.

DOES DETERRENCE WORK?

If the yardstick is avoidance of a general nuclear war, then we could conclude that since 1945, deterrence has worked effectively. Despite some periods of great international tensions involving nations armed with nuclear weapons, none has attacked or been attacked. Even threats to do so have been avoided—perhaps the sole exception was the Soviet threat during the Suez crisis of 1956 to unleash an attack on France and Britain if they did not withdraw their forces from Egypt.

For several reasons, however, an unqualified positive judgment on deter­rence does not seem warranted. First, although none of the major powers has undertaken an attack on another, we can only speculate about the reasons; we cannot prove conclusively that restraint has been the result of successful policies of strategic deterrence. Indeed, evidence that would prove the point is unlikely to be available at any time in the foreseeable future, if ever.

Second, the record since World War II demonstrates rather conclusively that efforts to deter probes, limited attacks, or even outright invasion of allies or client nations have often failed. Moreover, it is as a result of these failures that the international system has been wracked periodically by crises and con­flicts—for example, the Korean War, the missile confrontation of 1962, repeated crises over the status of Berlin, battles along the frontier between China and the Soviet Union, and others. In these cases, possession of nuclear weapons probably instilled caution among decision makers and significantly raised the risks of employing highly provocative measures to compel the opponent to re­treat or compromise during a crisis. But if a major function of nuclear arms is to prevent those types of moves that begin crises, then they can be judged, perhaps, as inadequate.

Finally, it is important to remember that deterrence is not a policy for

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all seasons. It is but one of many means by which national leaders can attempt to cope with the international environment and to influence other nations. Even during the height of the cold war, when the international system was marked by a tight bipolar configuration, efforts to stretch deterrence into an all-purpose policy were often less than successful. As the relatively simple structure of the cold-war international system undergoes modification—as the result of an in­crease in the number of nations, a breakdown of alliances, the growing impor­tance of various types of non-national actors, diffusion of effective power, the salience of a broader range of issue areas, and the like—the effectiveness of policies that rely solely on the threat of military retaliation is almost certain to decline. That is not to say that deterrence will cease to be of importance in the relations between nations. Nor is it to argue that the ability to maintain "crisis-stable" deterrence has lost its importance; this is at least a necessary if not a sufficient condition for any meaningful steps toward halting or reversing the global arms race. It is only to state that an effective foreign policy will increasingly need to rely upon a creative mix of negative and positive means of influence. Nations that are able to do so not only will be serving better their national interests, they are also more likely to contribute to a more stable international system.

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