Document created: 10 October 2003
Air University Review,
July-August 1974
Time, science, and the self-interests of the Soviet Union—not the SALT I agreements—have brought us to a U.S.-U.S.S.R. parity in strategic nuclear deterrents. SALT I simply affirmed the futility of returning to more psychologically comforting doctrines for deterrence. Some of us might have longed for the resurrection of massive retaliation; some for the nuclear trip wire—massive retaliation once removed—for the continued military security of the United States and its allies in Western Europe. But no longer do these qualify as serious alternatives save for debates about “what could have been.” We have to turn greater attention to what is probably a more credible deterrent to many types of military hostilities and political coercion aimed at West Europe. Tactical nuclear forces seem to be this next logical order of business.
Then, too, failing another incident like Czechoslovakia in 1968 or another Cuban missile crisis, there is reason to believe that NATO and its east European counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, are on the eve of a decade of arms control negotiations, perhaps even actual force reductions by both sides. It is not possible to negotiate arms control and force reductions for Europe, much less reach agreement, without first considering the disposition and future roles of tactical and theater nuclear weapons. It matters little whether the West declares theater-deployed nuclear capabilities as a nonnegotiable subject; it matters even less that Soviet strategists declare “tactical nuclear war” as a nonevent. The nuclear capabilities to conduct “limited” nuclear operations are there, as a part of both sides’ deterrence and defense forces.
It is a time, I believe, for taking stock, for going directly to a summary of what those of us who study tactical nuclear deterrence and defense know and do not know about it.
First, we are not certain how to define tactical nuclear war. Strategists disagree, both about its definition and about the utility of legitimizing it as a concept by defining it. Some would argue that “nuclear” and “limited” are contradictory terms and that “tactical” is no more than a euphemism for “limited.” But, to avoid both hard-nosed assertion and lengthy semantic cutting and pasting, my own candidate definition is that a tactical nuclear war is one in which the use of nuclear weapons is restricted by choice to the destruction or direct impediment of military forces on or over the battlefield.
Probably the most important thing we know about nuclear weapons in war is that to use them, and sometimes how they are used, can be matters of choice. No one is compelled to use nuclear weapons—they do not launch themselves. Technology would permit such automaticity, but currently that is not the way nuclear war would begin. As with the start of most wars, human beings must choose.
We know that the first side to use nuclear weapons in a conventional war can control the size and the scope of this first nuclear action. Measured in numbers of nuclear explosions, that action can be as small and brief as one, or it can be many over a period of hours or days. In other words, there can be such a thing as a “tactical,” or localized and otherwise limited, nuclear war—at least for a time.
On this subject of choice, we should add the qualification that we don’t know how much freedom of choice really exists as the war grows longer and maybe bigger. Prior to the first use of nuclear weapons against a nuclear opponent, the range of choice for when to initiate and how much to use extends into several dimensional concepts: now or later; from one to many weapons from a small geographical area to a large one; from small nuclear yields to larger; and so on. Logically, compared to later in such a war, the range of choice is now the largest. But once chosen and executed, the initial nuclear use can be expected to induce a reaction from the opponent, and from that point on each side’s nuclear action, or lack of it, will probably shape the other’s next choice. Therefore, choice becomes more circumscribed, even though many “options” still could exist.
We think we know another reason why choices dwindle: the longer the war continues and the larger it grows, the more inclined are the belligerents to act on their expectations of what might happen next, rather than to act on what had happened previously. Neither side would feel comfortable waiting to see if the other side were going to try to destroy its strategic retaliatory forces. Neither side would feel comfortable watching its own tactical forces being destroyed, leaving it fewer and fewer “options” for its next move. Choice remains, but it is narrowed in the sense of incentives to choose some actions in preference to others. Or so we think.
The nuclear power that intentionally limits the number of its nuclear options for what it believes to be a better deterrence posture must logically limit its choices for war and war termination. One could argue that the capability to creep up the escalation ladder does not mean that one must climb it gradually, any more than the capability to escalate precipitously means that an opponent believes you will leap out of the tactical arena.
We think we know that the people and political authorities in nuclear nations want to avoid becoming involved in either tactical or strategic nuclear war. Some nations see no benefits whatsoever in warfare. Some nations see no benefits in nuclear war worth the possible negative consequences of what another nuclear power might do in retaliation. These latter nations—that is, their human decision-makers—can be said to be deterred from starting nuclear wars or in starting wars that could become nuclear.
Decision-makers are not only deterred by what they do not know about nuclear wars; they are deterred as well by what they do know (or think they know). They know that nuclear weapons could make a war different from any in history by their possibilities for collapsing time and expanding destruction. No other war could match a nuclear war in destructiveness in so little time, whether measured worldwide or within the tactical arena. For those who are or should be deterred from choosing war, this time-destruction parlay means that they will have less time than in other wars to make what could be the most important decisions in history, in terms of consequences for mankind. However, we may be wrong in this assumption of “rationality”* on the part of statesmen. We won’t know who might be pretending madness, who might be mad, or who might be harmfully ignorant.
*A rational decision is the product of a decision-maker who anticipates the consequences of his possible choices and has a preference for some consequences over others.
Mainly because of what we know and don’t know about tactical nuclear war, we do not know anyone who can tell us how to “win” in a two-sided nuclear war. Some people claim to know; that is, they use the terms “win” and “lose.” They might very well have their own serviceable definition of “win,” but we are still waiting, skeptically, to hear and be convinced.
It seems more likely that win and lose are concepts without sensible application to the results of nuclear wars. Nuclear war begins with someone’s choice and will probably end the same way. That is all we know. True, someone, someday, might claim victory; but, like the “victorious” Pyrrhus surveying his own losses, he will also say that he can’t afford another victory like this!
In spite of the worst features of what we know about tactical nuclear weapons and war, we don’t know of good alternatives to nuclear weapons for maintaining a stable security in some areas of the world. Strategists do not know how to deter possibly hostile decision-makers who control nuclear weapons and massive conventional forces unless tactical nuclear forces remain at the service of a threatened ally. Perhaps we in the United States, our allies, and our rivals can someday convince each other that no one plans to be an aggressor by coming to mutually satisfying agreements about the strengths and locations of military forces. One of the better features of tactical nuclear weapons is that they tend to encourage these kinds of agreements; they might, in addition, someday help to keep the agreements working.
In sum, we know much more than we sometimes realize; we don’t know nearly as much as we sometimes assert. We shall never be certain how much we know; we won’t ever convert all the important things we do not know to things we want to know.
Is this singsong account the sum of our knowledge? Certainly not, but it might indeed be a tracing of the boundaries of our knowledge.
What about the” giants” of the field; surely they have more than this to say, do they not? Indeed they do, in a more charming and penetrating manner, as well; but would it change this summary? I am not convinced that tactical nuclear deterrence and defense have been treated seriously as anything more than smaller-scale analogies to strategic nuclear deterrence and defense.
Of what use is this knowledge, and this ignorance? An illustration is in order. I would propose these principles of tactical nuclear strategy and of nuclear strategy as a whole:
1. Don’t threaten nuclear actions—tactical, limited but beyond tactical, or strategic —to deter types of military aggression that could be stopped by conventional, nonnuclear means. This might seem self-evidently prudent to many of us, but the number of proposals to the contrary in the open literature is impressive.
2. Don’t accept any doctrine that specifies “very early” tactical nuclear initiations against attacking conventional forces. The more believable such a deterrent threat is to an opponent, the more likely that military preparedness measures on both sides in crises will encourage nuclear pre-emption, turning deterrence on its head.
3. Do accept the idea of tactical nuclear war as an option, among other options, to deter or to attempt to terminate some types of war. To become an observable phenomenon, tactical nuclear war requires the cooperation—the observation of limitations —by both sides; but to become an option for deterrence and defense, it requires the preparedness action of one side.
4. Do continue to respect the psychological value of nuclear weapons. Using one or a few in a conflict against a nonnuclear opponent just to suggest that they might really be used in some future war for greater stakes only cheapens their value at no gain. Besides, one’s major nuclear opponents can play this game too. *
Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
*The reader interested in views contrary to mine will find good examples in W. S. Bennett, R. R. Sandoval, and R. G. Shreffler, “A Credible Nuclear-Emphasis Defense for NATO,” Orbis, Summer 1973, pp. 463-79; and in Phillip A. Karber, “Nuclear Weapons and ‘Flexible Response,’” Orbis, Summer 1970, pp. 284-97.
John F. Scott (M.Ed., Shippensburg State College) is a research analyst with the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. He served in the Navy from 1950 to 1954 and has contributed to Army strategic studies since 1963. Mr. Scott is the author of articles on the application of social science to military problems.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
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