2019/03/23

Nuclear deterrence for Europe (Part III - A dirty solution)

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previously:

A solution to NATO's nuclear deterrence credibility problem would ideally combine the following features:
  1. Keep NNPT intact
  2. No (additional) crazy person or moron with full control over a nuclear 'trigger'
  3. maintenance of second strike capability in face of extreme nuclear onslaught
  4. high, credible risk that employment of 'strategic' nuclear weapons against a NATO (or EU) country leads to a 'proportional' tit-for-tat second strike
  5. high, credible risk that employment of 'strategic' nuclear weapons against NATO (or EU) military targets on in NATO (or EU) territory leads to a 'proportional' tit-for-tat second strike
  6. moderate (additional) expenses
  7. not deemed to be of aggressive nature (no threat to the Russian second strike capability, for example)
  8. no excessive firepower for 'tactical' second strike (ability to employ a single warhead of at most 150 kt TNTeq)
  9. not destabilising international relations
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It's difficult to combine these, especially with the basic problem that a nuclear power cannot credibly proclaim to risk its capital metropolis only because of some nuclear attack on a country with less population than said metropolis. This and the preservation of the NNPT are most difficult to reconcile.
 
I may have a way how to cheat out of this dilemma:
Protect the NNPT in its wording, but effectively (and credibly) risk that in times of war, it does not limit us for more than a few hours.

I will describe how it might be done, but first I'd like to state my distaste for the whole affair. I hope mankind will get past nuclear munitions altogether in my lifetime, and without ever using any more of them.

The scenario: We (European NATO/EU) develop and deploy a nuclear triad in addition to the traditional great powers' SSBN/SLBM arsenals:
  • few road-mobile IRBMs with a single approx. one Mt TNTeq warhead without re-entry vehicle each
  • road-mobile IRBMs (same type, but with with decoys and other countermeasures against BMD) with a single approx. 100 kt TNTeq warhead each
  • short range quasiballistic (manoeuvring) missiles in semi-trailers with a  single approx. 100 kt TNteq warhead each
The one Megaton IRBMs would be an EMP threat. Five* such explosions 400...500 km above Western Russia would damage much of the electrical equipment there. This is the EMP tit-for-tat deterrent.
The other IRBMs would be the city-destroying tit-for-tat deterrent.
The short range missiles would be the 'tactical' nuclear attack tit-for-tat deterrent.
I suppose no deterrent against nuclear attacks at sea is necessary. That stupid tsunami/Tsar bomba torpedo would be covered by the city-destroying tit-for-tat deterrent, and nuclear attacks on warships are something where we should 'offer the other cheek'.
This was the mere hardware side of deterrence.

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The credible deterrence effect would stem from the dispersion of these nuclear forces (especially the 2nd and 3rd category): They would be scattered all over European NATO/EU (or rather all agreeing countries).
The nuclear power that provides these assets would be in control and not share control (thus no violation of the NNPT), but if Russia (hypothetically) wiped out Warsaw, the Polish government could get mad, order the evacuation of all other Polish cities, seize what nuclear arsenal is on Polish roads and then send an IRBM or two to St. Petersburg for revenge.
Likewise with 'tactical' nuclear attacks on land targets.
I suppose France itself would initiate the EMP tit-for-tat if Western Europe was hit in such a way first, so the few one Megaton warheads would not need to be dispersed in Europe.

The public might not even be fully aware of such potential sharing of nuclear second strike launch capability, but any realistic potential nuclear aggressor would be. That would be ensured behind the scenes.

So the technical (and organisational) side would need to include on one hand the ability of attacked countries to seize and use the nuclear munitions, and on the other hand no host country should be able to turn itself into a permanent nuclear power by simply seizing the nuclear munitions.** I suppose the warheads should become unusable if they hadn't received some 'keep alive' code for more than a month or were opened without first receiving a correct 'opening' code. The seizing country could still recycle the plutonium and some components, but it would take months or years to create a practical nuclear warhead with this without prior detailed knowledge of the warhead design's details.
Obviously, no criminal or errorist elements must be allowed to seize and use such nuclear munitions either, which can be ensured by spacing the launcher vehicles and the command & control vehicles (which would have to be essential for the employment).***

The necessary quantity of nuclear warheads would still be relatively small (maybe 100...200 for all of European NATO/EU). The costs for the warheads would have to be borne by France, but I suppose NATO could find an AWACS-like joint financing scheme for the missiles and the related hardware (launcher and control vehicles).

Now let's look at the criteria again:
  1. Keep NNPT intact formally yes, but complaints are to be expected
  2. No (additional) crazy person or moron with full control of a nuclear 'trigger' OK
  3. maintenance of second strike capability in face of extreme nuclear onslaught challenging, but possible
  4. high, credible risk that employment of 'strategic' nuclear weapons against a NATO (or EU) country leads to a 'proportional' tit-for-tat second strike OK
  5. high, credible risk that employment of 'strategic' nuclear weapons against NATO (or EU) military targets on in NATO (or EU) territory leads to a 'proportional' tit-for-tat second strike OK
  6. moderate (additional) expenses The cost could very well be dozens of billions of Euros.
  7. not deemed to be of aggressive nature (no threat to the Russian second strike capability, for example) OK
  8. no excessive firepower for 'tactical' second strike (ability to employ a single warhead of at most 150 kt TNTeq) OK
  9. not destabilising Maybe it is destabilising. Pakistan might get an idea about its "Muslim nuclear weapons". People might find the security against for example the Hungarian government seizing nuclear warheads (and thus possibly necessitating an invasion by allies to retake those) unsatisfactory. Another issue is the transition period (easily a decade) during which the first strike risk may actually be slightly elevated.
A return to an INF-like ban on MRBMs and IRBMs would be almost impossible once such a deterrence scheme was employed, but on the other hand it could serve as bargaining chip for a INF renewal if the great powers' nuclear deterrence was judged to be sufficiently credible again in the meantime.

I'm not really satisfied. It feels like a step backwards, especially if it's not accompanied by a reduction of SLBM warheads (though that's exactly where some of the warheads could come from almost for free!). I wish we could just get along without the damn nukes.

S O

P.S.: The IRBM could be based on the French S-3 IRBM, though I'm not sure how well that design would handle being stored and moved on road while in a horizontal position.

Regarding Russia being used as a kind-of-bogeyman; remember that I'm generally in favour of stagnant or reduced military spending in Europe given the small and unlikely threats. There  is some remnant of justification for military spending, though - and for Europeans that's de facto only Russia. So what little resources we should spend on military affairs in Europe should be spent first and foremost with deterrence and if need be defence against Russia. More specifically, the least unlikely scenario of hot conflict appears to be an aggression against NATO's and EU's Baltic members. This blog post should not be mistaken for a conflict-promoting, or hawkish one.

*: Multiple warhead explosions for multiple EMPs because direction to the EMP source matters.
**: The current  nuclear participation regime does actually not provide such a protection, but it deploys American nuclear warheads in much fewer countries.
***: I suppose this would be no more a violation of the NNPT than was to store nuclear warheads that required no codes at all in foreign host countries during the 70's. The whole scheme is a violation of the NNPT in spirit, of course.
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25 comments:

  1. This is far more elaborate than I thought it would be. Personal prejudice I suppose, but I still can't see any level of nuclear combat that doesn't escalate to 'fire everything' if not within hours, then definitely within that month.

    That prejudice leads me to see tac nukes (and emp nukes) as additional vectors to nuclear Armageddon. Different starting point, same destination. Any reasoning or strategy that would allow for their employment is a disguise to all out nuclear war.

    Keep the SLBMs, road launchers are cheaper alternatives, so fair enough. Invest heavily in nuclear c3, and signal to Russia that Europe hasn't let their structures decay to the level the UK and us allowed. Don't overly worry about ABM, add MIRV decoys and countermeasures to existing platforms.

    I don't think the genie is ever going back in the bottle for the remainder of human history.

    I think we will see half a dozen more nuke armed countries by 2030.

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    1. No mushroom - no proof. Nukes are way, way harder to make than pop sci makes it out to be ("you just need an implosion"). That's why only the original nuke club has them... in theory. Given how much the infrastructure was allowed to decay, they may be just fizzers by now.

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  2. France can all do it alone. French Navy with nuclear sub can carry second strike.
    Questions are politic. Seems to me trust between countries is not up to the point. So let's do nothing as usual. And France go on.

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    1. No, read part I. Trust between allies isn't producing deterrence anyway.

      What matters is whether the potential aggressor fears a nuclear second strike by the nuclear power(s) - and that's questionable today.

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  3. There is no way for Dead Hand or the Russian leadership to know that purported EU nukes will not be city killers and are instead HAEMP devices and escalating to full retaliation.

    I see no advantage of your first or second strike capability. I would actually argue that a bilateral START or SALT agreement between the EU and Russia is necessary, limiting yields to below 50Kt (ideally 25Kt) for all warheads, be they first or second strike. This substantially limits their city killing ability while preserving the military commander's prerogative to have the ability to strike divisions on the attack.

    MAD will always be the one and only balance of terror as long as yields of warheads exceed 100Kt. The temptation for a strategic strike will remain.

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    1. "warhead without re-entry vehicle" in combination with the ballistic trajectory to nowhere disproves your first sentence.

      "This substantially limits their city killing ability" - but this also reduces the deterring effect, and it might motivate a conventional arms race.

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    2. What heavy warheads do the Russians have aimed at Europe at the moment, leaving aside the Americans bringing INF crashing down? Your proposal would create nuclear threats which currently do not exist. Moreover, a larger device is not trivial. How advanced are the British and French warheads given that they performed less than 1/4 - 1/5 of more advanced American / Soviet tests? Moreover, why would the Americans acquiesce to an independent EU deterrent? They tolerate the very limited French one, but have a stranglehold on the British one, since they control the missile supply.

      Finally, while your scenario might make sense in a pre-arms race scenario with the Russians in which the US were not part of NATO, it makes no sense today where the Americans and the Poles are driving forces for the NATO anti-Russian policy being followed by the whole of NATO. Since it appears that the root causes of the disagreement are not material, but ideological "Russia delenda est", of Baltic-Polish resentment and of a default American anti-Russian stance, playing with armament, TOE or European deterrents from the perspective of a unified EU policy is to overlook the main theme.

      I don't think your scheme is hawkish or anti-Russian. I just think it's misguided. But I commend your efforts to come up with a reasonable military policy of an independent EU. It's just that it doesn't exist. Nor would one make sense. Should the Americans cut themselves off from the EU (in the form of leaving NATO), why continue keeping the Russians out?

      Where do you think we diverge on this issue?

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    3. "Your proposal would create nuclear threats which currently do not exist."

      I don't see it and thus disagree.

      "(...)why would the Americans acquiesce to an independent EU deterrent?"

      Why should anyone care about their opinion anymore? It's unclear whether they will be allies in 3...5 years anyway.

      "(...) why would the Americans acquiesce to an independent EU deterrent?"

      The Americans don't have a real foreign policy anymore. Besides, there's no reason to pay attention to them in regard to European deterrence, as laid out in part I.

      "Since it appears that the root causes of the disagreement are not material, but ideological "Russia delenda est", of Baltic-Polish resentment (...)"

      The Baltics are in the EU, not just in NATO. We would have to wreck the EU and form EU 2.0 without them to get rid of them, so giving them up to save on deterrence & defence expenses is no realistic option.

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    4. "without them to get rid of them" I never suggested getting rid of them. Merely distancing them from a habilitator (an unwise outside Great Power) such as the USA ought to be enough. That and not allowing a minority to dictate policy to the rest of us.

      "Why should anyone care about their opinion anymore? It's unclear whether they will be allies in 3...5 years anyway." Why, I believe you are exaggerating.

      " Besides, there's no reason to pay attention to them in regard to European deterrence, as laid out in part I." So they're the ones making threats and leveraging the bases - including to make jolly B-52 trips around the Baltic, as well as pushing the EU to have a more Russophobic policy, but they're not relevant or important?

      "I don't see it and thus disagree" Perhaps I was not exhaustive enough. Current nuclear warheads aimed at Europe include *potentially* the Iskander brigade in Kaliningrad and should they be nuclear capable, a handful of Kalibr missiles of the Russian navy, again potentially. There are no Russian IRBMs or intermediate GLCM aimed at us. The bombers are there for America, as are most of the ICBMs and SLBMs. There are far juicier targets for them than much of anything in Europe, mostly the American ICBM fields and other nuclear bases, C4 infrastructure, arms factories. As such European IRBM / GLCM would indeed provoke a counter-response involving a new layer of threat, and with very low reaction times, where IRBM are involved.

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    5. "Merely distancing them from a habilitator (an unwise outside Great Power) such as the USA ought to be enough."

      I suppose we disagree about how geography works.

      "There are no Russian IRBMs or intermediate GLCM aimed at us."

      The Russians can aim their ICBMs and SLBMs at Europe at will. It's irrelevant whether they have any shorter-ranges missiles with nuclear warheads in range.

      And no, the Americans are no longer important in themselves. The lying moron is incapable of actual foreign policy, and the rest of his administration is negligible. Politicians can keep pretending that American diplomats matter and that you could have agreements with the lying moron, but both seems to be delusional.

      The Americans are irrelevant to European deterrence and defence because we can't know if the Russians will take them into account in a few years at all.

      "Why, I believe you are exaggerating."
      Things that persisted for decades often seem stable, even if they aren't. The lying moron sure does rather act as if the U.S. was allied with Russia, not NATO members.

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    7. No, Trump and Bannon so far had negligible effect on governance in Europe. They Polish and Hungarian government were moving towards 'controlled democracy' long before him, and the Italians had voted for Berlusconi many times already.
      Trump, Bannon and RT only feed the idiots of the extreme right with a fantasyland tale, that's all.

      The difference between pre-2010 Trump and today's Trump is not about him being-two-faced, but about dementia and him becoming extremely lazy and refusing further intake of information.

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    8. "I suppose we disagree about how geography works." I meant distancing politically.

      "The Russians can aim their ICBMs and SLBMs at Europe at will." Yes, but they have better targets not in Europe.

      "And no, the Americans are no longer important in themselves. The lying moron is incapable of actual foreign policy, and the rest of his administration is negligible. Politicians can keep pretending that American diplomats matter and that you could have agreements with the lying moron, but both seems to be delusional." They can still cause damage and blow things up. In my opinion American foreign policy has been a disaster since at least the turn of last century, from the Banana Wars to Wilson and on from there. That didn't stop them from being large and important players.

      "The Americans are irrelevant to European deterrence and defence because we can't know if the Russians will take them into account in a few years at all." Are we living in the same universe where the Amis sicced the Georgians on the South Ossetians, pushed for NATO expansion, and advised the radicals in Kiev to send the army against the protesting East? Where they're currently trying to build a Fort Trump and implicitly threatening to deploy IRBMs in Europe? The very same Amis who control the maritime flow of oil from Middle East to Europe? 6th Fleet / Rammstein?

      Look, if you really believe the Amis are not a factor, why not negotiate a better deal with the Russians (and North Africans)

      "Italians had voted for Berlusconi many times already." Comparin the two is rather interesting. Trump doesn't have a shred of the intelligence and cunning of Berlusconi, who actually had to build up a party and lead to elections in a Parliamentary system, who at times counted some serious men among his government, and who won several elections. A good personal example and statesman, hardly, an equivalent to the "Orange Buffoon", also hardly. Moreover, he was actually investigated for actual crimes and dodgy real-estate and other deals, as opposed to Trump, who's being investigated on bizzarre and rather not credible "foreign collusion" charges as opposed to his very real (and more easily provable?) business crimes. Moreover, the rise of Berlusconi was due to Mani Pulite, not necessarily a rightward shift. O tempora, o mores!

      "Trump, Bannon and RT" May I point out that Bannon is in charge of the anti-RT, VoA, in Asia? And that RT hosts both right- and left- wing wackos? Or that the extreme right does very well metatasizing on its own, without the need for "spooky action at a distance" by foreign powers.

      "Trump is part of a spreading ideology that is taking power in more and more EU countries with ruthless methods" Trump has an ideology? I think you're giving the old buffoon too much credit. He's merely good (bad!) at exploiting existing fissures. Neither he nor RT invented racism in America, nor the anger of the disenfranchised voter.

      S.B.P.

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    9. The Baltics and Poland could distance themselves from the Americans - that wouldn't matter regarding the general need for deterrence and defence that these countries have.
      ---
      "They can still cause damage and blow things up."

      To protect the peace against Americans is a different topic. There's no reason why their opinion on European deterrence should matter any more, though.
      ---
      "Are we living in the same universe where the Amis (...)"
      ... all stuff that happened before the lying moron.
      ---
      I know that RT is about dividing us (same with the Russian troll and fake account armies), but this includes injecting B.S. into the brains of right wingers. Hence I mentioned them.

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    10. "that wouldn't matter regarding the general need for deterrence and defence that these countries have" Very true, but it is not obvious to me what this security needs actually consist of. There are still very few Russian formations near the Baltic, or in Kaliningrad, certainly negligible in comparison to the rather formidable Polish armed forces. Europe isn't full of Sevastopol / Crimea situations and it's a bit difficult to pretend otherwise.

      My question still stands: if the Americans don't count, or count much less, why not negotiate (offensive) capabalities reductions? I'm all in favour of purely defensive moves, such as IADS and some maneuvers in Poland, and if the Baltics insist, money for special fast response police units to calm them down. Not so much in favour of escalation with no clear aim or achievable equilibrium state in mind.

      Finally, even if the US fully decoupled from Europe, the Russian warheads would still point at them, because of the bizzarre logic of nuclear rivalry + inertia. "Tactical" nuclear weapons in reserve in stockpiles would represent the nuclear threat to Europe in case of war. How would your scheme handle that scenario? And what would possess the Russians to instead use a city-destroyer on a city instead? Nuclear terrorism is poor strategy: it will just lead to tit-for-tat and again the strategy must be reconduced to real world aims - what real world aims could justify this?

      S.B.P.

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    11. Arms limitation treaties don't secure peace; they merely reduce the waste of resources. The topic is deterrence and defence, so affordable expenses are but one of multiple objectives.
      Moreover, Russia faces the PRC as well, so NATO-Russian arms reduction treaties may very well have a lower bound not far from where we are now.

      I note you do not provide an alternative answer to the problems identified in part I, nor do you disprove the problem identifications from part I.

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    12. I am sorry that I have not put my argument better. I resolve to do so now, separating it into direct criticism of your assertions, and criticism of your broader assumptions. Just a quick quibble, before I begin :)
      "Moreover, Russia faces the PRC as well," Given the recent Chinese Army cuts and the fact that they're hiding their small nuclear deterrent near the Russian border (under cover of Russian IADS) suggests they have rather little tow worry about in the short term. Moreover, they keep selling them high-technology weapons from fighters to ship designs to SAM missiles and radars. All territorial disputes were also settled in the 90's.

      S.B.P.

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  4. I'm not sure Russia will believe Germany when it proclaims Poland Seized Control of a nuclear weapon, and with no access codes or training in its operation, managed to launch it accurately.

    Russia might think Germany is being deceitful, or even if Germany is telling the truth, Russia might decide that unintentionally supplying nuclear weapons that just killed several million Russians is no defence, and level half a dozen German cities to encourage the guards of the other weapons to do a better job disabling them.

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    1. The crap that happens when nuclear deterrence failed and a nuclear 2nd strike happens is typically ignored in nuclear deterrence schemes. One may even think the worse that crap is, the better the deterrence effect.

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    2. What if Poland seizes a nuke and uses it in a tactical first strike to destroy a Russian division laying siege to Warsaw?

      It gets complicated quickly

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    3. You seriously think the Poles would use a 100 kt TNTeq nuclear warhead to defeat a "division" right next to their capital?
      I suppose that's not really a scenario to be worried about.

      There is the issue that a small power could seize nukes with intent to use them immediately, of course.
      There's little they could gain from it, though. And the 2nd strike should be deterrent against such foolish actions.

      The real achilles heel is that a small power could seize the nukes to become a nuclear power itself.
      I suppose my concept built in more safety against such a scenario than the Americans have built into their current nuclear sharing scheme, though.

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  5. You work for DW, SO?

    New nuclear weapons in Europe - The return of the Cold War? | DW Documentary

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzJmLJaeSlQ

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    1. What a coincidence, neither do I. Really makes you think. Small world eh?

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    2. There has been some intensified talk about nuclear deterrence in the past couple months due to the lying moron's obvious defects.
      I was used to talk about replacement nukes becuase of warheads becoming unreliable with age and about bunker busting small yield nukes becuase of the general NATO air forces bunker busting obsession. The renewed interest in nuclear deterrence felt new.

      The articles that I saw were disappointing, in that they followed the "more money for nukes -> ??? -> success!" scheme with mere pretend-rationales.

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