Modernization means escalation
It’s hard to say what is the most disturbing thing president Trump said in his State of the Union address, but there’s one that was not just disturbing, but frightening—the idea of “modernizing” our nuclear arsenal.
“Modernization” means, for starters, modifying our strategic force (i.e. big bombs, 100 kilotons of TNT equivalent yield on up) to make it more flexible and deadly. Sounds bad, right? Exactly what Donald Trump wants–as always, he wants to be the biggest and baddest dude on the planet. Whatever the cost. The cost in dollars, of course, will ultimately be measured in hundreds of billions. The increased risk of strategic nuclear exchanges will be immeasurable.
For a look at what modernization portends, read the executive summary of the latest Nuclear Posture Review to be found here.
On the strategic side, the upgrading will be a bolstering of our forces of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) with Russia.*
Sounds dangerous enough, but the more dangerous aspect of “Modernization” is expanding our tactical nuclear weapons arsenal.
For links to pro- and con- discussions of tactical nukes see the end of this post (below footnotes).
A new arms race: normalizing nuclear weapons
Expansion of the tactical nuclear weapons program began under President Obama. It got a push from evidence that the Russians and the Chinese were getting ahead of us in tactical nuclear deployment. It was peddled by the military as a deterrent to the adversaries’ weapons. You can conceive of it as a scaled-down version of a MAD standoff.
The tactical nuclear weapons concept is to have smaller weapons (under 50 kilotons TNT yield) to be used in surgical strikes against enemy forces, to include launch positions of adversaries’ tactical nukes.
The arms race would consist of building, not only more tactical nuclear weapons, but also ever more powerful ones. “Tactical” sounds relatively not so dangerous—small bombs such as those with 10-20 TNT tons (not kilotons) yield that were being tested for battlefield use in the 1950s and 1960s. But the tactical weapons now being proposed for the U.S. are more in the range of 0.3 – 30.0 kilotons (the Hiroshima bomb was equal to 12-18 kilotons of TNT, the Nagasaki bomb 18-23 kilotons). One “low yield” tactical weapon has a maximum yield of 50 kilotons which can be dialed down “as needed.” See Nuclear dial a yield
“Tactical” nuclear weapons normalize the use of nuclear weapons of all sizes. No longer unthinkable (as with strategic MAD), but thinkable. Thinkable as just a small step up from conventional weapons, and far less than all-out MAD. Thinkability is what makes the tactical nukes even more dangerous than the strategic ones.
If begun as deterrence, once you normalize it, it’s hard to know where to stop—or where your adversaries will stop.
Moreover, the bellicose tone of Donald Trump’s speech implies the use of tactical nukes, not just as deterrents, but for use in a first strike at a foe that steps too far out of line. Tactical nukes under the control of a Barack Obama administration are one thing; under an administration led by an unstable, immature, insecure, thin-skinned, trigger-happy narcissist is quite another.
Normalization threatens metastasis
If we build out a tactical nuclear capability, why should we expect other countries such as India and Pakistan, not to claim the right to have tactical nuclear, besides their existing strategic weapons? Neither country is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, so that their commitment not to build more nukes of any kind is only voluntary. The border between those two countries is the most likely flashpoint for a nuclear exchange. They have already had two wars, and recently India evacuated 36,000 people from Kashmir due to escalation. If either side had tactical nuclear weapons, they would be sorely tempted to use them, and then what? If they did, it would set a precedent—further normalization.
The only thing that would be keeping India and Pakistan from developing tactical nukes is the strain on national budgets.
Another flashpoint is the Baltic states, on which Vladimir Putin has designs in an effort to reconstruct the Soviet empire. Use of tactical nuclear missiles there could escalate to—what? (In connection with Europe, we have to consider the existence of conventional weaponry massed near Russia’s borders on either side. The use of a monster “conventional” bomb, such as recently used by the U.S. in Afghanistan , would invite retaliation with tactical nuclear—just an itty-bitty step up.)
Actual use would lead to an exchange with the other side,** and with an exchange comes much more than the putatively “local” effects of a surgical tactical strike. The atmospheric debris, dust, and nuclear contaminants resulting from an exchange running out of control would imperil the health of the entire globe. The only upside might be global cooling—a good way, Trump might think, to shut up climate change alarmists.
The exchange, if one side thinks it is losing, might trigger an all-out strategic nuclear war. And we know how Donald Trump hates to lose
I think I just heard another tick of the Doomsday Clock.
================ Footnotes follow ======================
*The basic premise of MAD is that parity in strategic nuclear weapons between the U.S. and Russia guarantees that a first strike attempt by one would be met with an equal and opposite response by the other: if continued, Armageddon. Similar but not equivalent reasoning goes to discourage a nuclear attack by any adversary, such as China, Iran, or North Korea, even where parity does not exist: Not-Mutual Assured Destruction (N-MAD) [joke, there is no official designation of N-MAD for nuclear weapons. I couldn’t use NOMAD because it is used by gamers for fictional weapons]
MAD seems to have worked, so far, in preventing a deliberate first strike, although on at least three occasions false alarms almost triggered mistaken “retaliations” against foes who had not actually attacked. If a supposed “retaliation” against a non-attacker were launched, of course, the other party, thinking they had been attacked first, would have responded with an actual retaliation. At which point the ghastly logic of MAD would throw both sides into a conceivably catastrophic spiral. You may think it’s crazy, but we haven’t had World War III. Yet.
** Assuming the other side had tactical nukes. If they didn’t, then how does the “deterrence” justification fit in?
For a discussion concluding in favor of tactical nukes see: Defense One: Tactical Nuclear Defensible
Summary of debate on Trump plan from Examiner: Debate on Trump nuke plan