America’s strategic nuclear posture review is miles off the mark

Most Americans are unaware of the congressional commission that just released its report on America’s strategic posture, or of the complicated business of nuclear deterrence. After identifying what it calls the unique threats posed by two peer adversaries, China and Russia, the report lays out a comprehensive, all-of-government approach for the nation’s future security, with a clear emphasis on strategic nuclear issues.  

What does this mean in simple English?

During the Cold War, U.S. nuclear deterrence was predicated on maintaining enough weaponry to destroy the Soviet Union after surviving a USSR first strike. To understand the power of these weapons, one kiloton is the explosive equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT. A megaton is equal to 1 million tons of TNT.

In the late 1960s, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara arbitrarily set the requirement for deterrence as being able to strike the USSR with 400 megatons of explosives. By comparison, the Hiroshima nuclear weapon was rated at less than 20 kilotons — or 1/20,000 of the McNamara standard. To ensure the survival of its strategic deterrent, the U.S. maintained the triad divided among sea-based nuclear ballistic submarines, land-based intercontinental missiles and manned bombers.

Until China began to expand its nuclear deterrent force, deterrence was a bilateral U.S.-Soviet/Russian relationship. Because of arms control agreements of the New START Treaty, the U.S. and Russia are now limited to 1,550 nuclear and thermonuclear warheads each. Now, with China, the strategic balance is becoming “triterrence” and not deterrence.

The report states that the U.S. strategy must plan to deter and defeat “simultaneous Russian and Chinese aggression in Europe and Asia using conventional forces.” If the U.S. and its allies’ conventional forces aren’t enough, “U.S. strategy would need to be altered to increase reliance on nuclear weapons to deter or counter opportunistic or collaborative aggression.”

Its major recommendations are based on the urgent need to expand and modernize our conventional and nuclear forces as well as capabilities across all of government including the defense industrial base. This will cost a great deal of money. Unfortunately, the report does not provide any cost analysis of what the nation must spend in this process. And, unfortunately, there are other unanswered questions the report did not address.

The first is to define deterrence in specific terms and what is needed to discourage China and Russia from taking what actions. China has not been deterred from threatening Taiwan or aggressively expanding its presence in the various Chinese seas to expand its influence and control. Russia has not been deterred from invading Georgia and Ukraine and threatening the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. 

Second, why was a strategic framework for a triterrence and not a deterrence-based world to incorporate China not considered as well as other force-level options such as a dyad that emphasizes submarines and bombers over nuclear missiles?  

Third, has the report exaggerated the threats of China and Russia? While America is obsessed with the prospect of a Chinese World War II-like amphibious invasion of Taiwan, China does not now and for the foreseeable future have that capability. Other options such as a blockade or seizure of Taiwan’s offshore island are more effective and likely.

According to United Kingdom Chief of Defense Admiral Tony Radakin, Russia has lost about half of its military capability in Ukraine. Currently, NATO maintains a large conventional military advantage over Russia. The accession of Finland surely complicates Kremlin thinking. And there is no reason why Russia would attack NATO.

Costs are a critical factor. In fiscal 2024, the U.S. could spend nearly $900 billion on defense. And the force still continues to shrink. This is the contradiction of uncontrolled real annual cost growth of about 5 percent to 7 percent plus inflation of 3 percent to 7 percent. About 8 percent to 14 percent increases a year in defense are needed just to stay even. The irony is that the more America spends, the more the force contracts, quantitatively and qualitatively. 

To meet the recommendations for increasing conventional forces and modernizing the triad’s forces with strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, an annual increase of one-fifth to a quarter in defense spending ($1.08 trillion to $1.12 trillion a year) is needed. Given the debt and deficits and nearly $700 billion for annual interest payments, will Congress approve that short of war?

Before this report becomes policy, perhaps answering these questions is a good idea. 

Harlan K. Ullman, Ph.D. is a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council and the prime author of the “shock and awe” military doctrine. His 12th book, “The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD:  How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large,” is available on Amazon. He can be reached on Twitter @harlankullman.