Should the United States Reject MAD? Damage Limitation and U.S. Nuclear Strategy toward China

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles L. Glaser ◽  
Steve Fetter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear Forces ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Significant Damage ◽  
Ballistic Missiles ◽  
Damage Limitation ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Military

As China invests in its nuclear forces and U.S.-China relations become increasingly strained, questions of U.S. nuclear doctrine require greater attention. The key strategic nuclear question facing the United States is whether to attempt to maintain and enhance its damage-limitation capability against China. The answer is less straightforward than it was during the Cold War, because China's nuclear force is orders of magnitude smaller than the Soviet force was. Part of the answer depends on the military-technical feasibility of the United States achieving a significant damage-limitation capability: What would be the outcome of military competition over the survivability of China's intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and command and control, and over the effectiveness of U.S. ballistic missile defenses? The answer also depends on the benefits that a damage-limitation capability would provide; these could include contributions to homeland deterrence, extended deterrence, and reassurance of U.S. regional allies. The final piece of the analysis concerns the potential costs of a damage-limitation capability, which could include increased escalatory pressures during crises and growing political tension between the United States and China. A thorough analysis demonstrates that the United States should forgo such a capability because the prospects for preserving a significant damage-limitation capability are poor; the deterrent benefits would be small; and the escalatory and political costs would be relatively large.

Counterforce Revisited: Assessing the Nuclear Posture Review's New Missions

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles L. Glaser ◽  
Steve Fetter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear Forces ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Conventional Weapons ◽  
Damage Limitation ◽  
The Cold War

Current U.S. nuclear strategy identifies new nuclear counterforce missions as a means of impeding the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The strategy appears to overvalue these counterforce missions. U.S. conventional weapons can destroy most targets that can be destroyed with nuclear weapons; only moderately deep and precisely located targets can be destroyed only by nuclear weapons. In addition, the benefits of nuclear counterforce-which could include deterrence, damage limitation, and the continued ability of the United States to pursue its foreign policy objectives-are relatively small, because the United States possesses large nuclear forces and highly effective conventional forces. Finally, nuclear counterforce would bring a variety of costs, including an increased probability of accidental war and unnecessary preemptive attacks in a severe crisis. Nevertheless, the case for nuclear counterforce is stronger than during the Cold War, when the enormous size and redundancy of U.S. and Soviet forces rendered counterforce useless. When facing a small nuclear force, the United States may decide to use counterforce to limit damage. Although complex trade-offs are involved, if there are critical targets that can be destroyed only with nuclear weapons, then under a narrow set of conditions the benefits of planning for damage limitation might exceed the dangers. The United States must not, however, rely on nuclear counterforce to support a more assertive foreign policy; doing so would unjustifiably increase the probability of nuclear war.

The Soviet Factor in the US-China Military-Technical Cooperation during the Cold War

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-47
Author(s):  
Yinan Li
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Technical Cooperation ◽  
Arms Sales ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The development of the PRC’s armed forces included three phases when their modernization was carried out through an active introduction of foreign weapons and technologies. The first and the last of these phases (from 1949 to 1961, and from 1992 till present) received wide attention in both Chinese and Western academic literature, whereas the second one — from 1978 to 1989 —when the PRC actively purchased weapons and technologies from the Western countries remains somewhat understudied. This paper is intended to partially fill this gap. The author examines the logic of the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States in the context of complex interactions within the United States — the USSR — China strategic triangle in the last years of the Cold War. The first section covers early contacts between the PRC and the United States in the security field — from the visit of R. Nixon to China till the inauguration of R. Reagan. The author shows that during this period Washington clearly subordinated the US-Chinese cooperation to the development of the US-Soviet relations out of fear to damage the fragile process of detente. The second section focuses on the evolution of the R. Reagan administration’s approaches regarding arms sales to China in the context of a new round of the Cold War. The Soviet factor significantly influenced the development of the US-Chinese military-technical cooperation during that period, which for both parties acquired not only practical, but, most importantly, political importance. It was their mutual desire to undermine strategic positions of the USSR that allowed these two countries to overcome successfully tensions over the US arms sales to Taiwan. However, this dependence of the US-China military-technical cooperation on the Soviet factor had its downside. As the third section shows, with the Soviet threat fading away, the main incentives for the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States also disappeared. As a result, after the Tiananmen Square protests, this cooperation completely ceased. Thus, the author concludes that the US arms sales to China from the very beginning were conditioned by the dynamics of the Soviet-American relations and Beijing’s willingness to play an active role in the policy of containment. In that regard, the very fact of the US arms sales to China was more important than its practical effect, i.e. this cooperation was of political nature, rather than military one.

scholarly journals Escalation through Entanglement: How the Vulnerability of Command-and-Control Systems Raises the Risks of an Inadvertent Nuclear War

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Acton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Early Warning ◽  
The United States ◽  
Dual Use ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Organizational Reform ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Cyber Espionage ◽  
Damage Limitation ◽  
And Control

Nonnuclear weapons are increasingly able to threaten dual-use command, control, communication, and intelligence assets that are spaced based or distant from probable theaters of conflict. This form of “entanglement” between nuclear and nonnuclear capabilities creates the potential for Chinese or Russian nonnuclear strikes against the United States or U.S. strikes against either China or Russia to spark inadvertent nuclear escalation. Escalation pressures could be generated through crisis instability or through one of two newly identified mechanisms: “misinterpreted warning” or the “damage-limitation window.” The vulnerability of dual-use U.S. early-warning assets provides a concrete demonstration of the risks. These risks would be serious for two reasons. First, in a conventional conflict against the United States, China or Russia would have strong incentives to launch kinetic strikes on U.S. early-warning assets. Second, even limited strikes could undermine the United States' ability to monitor nuclear attacks by the adversary. Moreover, cyber interference with dual-use early-warning assets would create the additional danger of the target's misinterpreting cyber espionage as a destructive attack. Today, the only feasible starting point for efforts to reduce the escalation risks created by entanglement would be unilateral measures—in particular, organizational reform to ensure that those risks received adequate consideration in war planning, acquisition decisions, and crisis decisionmaking. Over the longer term, unilateral measures might pave the way for more challenging cooperative measures, such as agreed restrictions on threatening behavior.

The Anglo-American Worldview and the Question of World Order

2019 ◽  
pp. 175-190
Author(s):  
Andrew Gamble
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

One of the distinctive features of the idea of an Anglosphere has been a particular view of world order, based on liberal principles of free movement of goods, capital and people, representative government, and the rule of law, which requires a powerful state or coalition of states to uphold and enforce them. This chapter charts the roots as well as the limits of this conception in the period of British ascendancy in the nineteenth century, and how significant elements of the political class in both Britain and the United States in the twentieth century came to see the desirability of cooperation between the English-speaking nations to preserve that order against challengers. This cooperation was most clearly realised in the Second World War. The post-war construction of a new liberal world order was achieved under the leadership of the United States, with Britain playing a largely supportive but secondary role. Cooperation between Britain and the US flourished during the Cold War, particularly in the military and intelligence fields, and this became the institutional core of the ‘special relationship’. The period since the end of the Cold War has seen new challenges emerge both externally and internally to the Anglo-American worldview.

Panama

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Donoghue
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Dictatorship ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
New Granada ◽  
The Us ◽  
Full Independence ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Military

Since declaring independence from Spain in 1821, Panama struggled for nearly two centuries to forge a true sovereignty. Free from Madrid’s control, the province found itself subordinated first by Gran Colombia, later New Granada, and after gaining a measure of independence in a 1903 secessionist revolution, by the United States which built a canal and attached zone through which Washington dominated the nation. Domestically, Panama also wrestled with the complexities of a multiracial, class-divided society ruled by a European-descended elite and political infighting among populists and the military that impeded liberal democracy. Gradually, a nationalist movement that sought greater state formation and control over the canal coalesced around mid-century. But the importance of the waterway to Washington imposed constraints on this movement’s success until the 1978 ratification of the Carter-Torrijos treaties which ensured the transfer of the canal to Panama by century’s end. In 1989, concerns over political tyranny, drug trafficking, and the integrity of the upcoming canal transfer compelled the United States to invade Panama and end the military dictatorship (1968–1989) while restoring a form of elite-dominated democracy. After nearly a hundred years of resistance and diplomacy, Panama finally won full independence on December 31, 1999, taking possession of the canal and the remnants of the US-run enclave. Problems of how to reorganize the republic’s economy and political structure, as well as persistent corruption and poverty, complicated the post-US era. Still, with its unique geostrategic position in the world economy, opportunities as well as obstacles confront Panama today finally freed from a century of neocolonialism.

A Review of the Cybersecurity Programs in the United States Army

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Grayson Sawyer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Army ◽  
Chief Information Officer ◽  
Life Cycle Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Natural Resistance ◽  
Environment Change ◽  
Communication Plan ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Military

Cybersecurity is very complex, and as such, decisions regarding cybersecurity are highly intertwined with the functionality and application of systems. The threat to cybersecurity is, however, ever-evolving and decisions regarding cybersecurity, therefore, need to be made with this in mind. Cybersecurity systems, therefore, need to be tailored to individual systems, be adaptive, have the ability to evolve with the threat as well as be highly integrated with the system designs and the mission these systems support . In the military, it is critical to develop systems that maintain the expected level of confidentiality, non-repudiation, authentication, integrity, and availability that aids towards the collective goal of cybersecurity. In the military there are several stakeholders that play a key part in cybersecurity with the main ones being; the ones commanding or using the military system, the ones involved in the acquisition, life-cycle management and testing, the authorizing officials, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the intelligence and the counterintelligence officers. Accountability and control is, therefore spread out throughout the organization. This, however, leads to the blurring of roles and responsibilities. In conclusion, therefore, even though militaries exist for the purpose of combat most of the time, they operate in relatively peaceful conditions. During these peaceful times, they imagine and manufacture wartime conditions to determine their preparedness and the chances of a victory with the current conditions and resources. A communication plan approach will be able to tear down the expected natural resistance since the leaders will support the proposed changes and even devote resources to see that they are successful. The purpose of the communication plan is to, therefore, make the leaders the advocates for change. This is based on the understanding that in this environment, change is not possible without support from the leadership. Keywords: Cybersecurity, Intelligence, Communication & United States Army

Peaceful Change in US Foreign Policy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Welch Larson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
The World ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The chapter discusses the US advocacy of liberal principles and pursuit of hegemony as its contribution to peaceful change. In the nineteenth century, the United States forcefully asserted its leadership over the Western Hemisphere, although it did not have the military capabilities to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. Under Woodrow Wilson, the United States promoted the ideals of collective security, self-determination, and international institutions. These ideas were implemented in the World War II settlement, when the United States helped to establish new institutions: Bretton Woods and the United Nations. The United States helped to integrate the USSR and China into the international community through the détente strategy, including linkage and triangular diplomacy. After the Cold War ended, Bill Clinton sought to engage China through increased trade and membership in the World Trade Organization and decided to expand NATO to include members of the former Soviet alliance.

The Philippines in 2004: New Mandate, Daunting Problems

Asian Survey ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Temario C. Rivera
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Budget Deficit ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Peace Negotiations ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Military

National elections in the Philippines took place on May 10, 2004, providing incumbent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo with a six-year electoral mandate and control of both houses of Congress and most of the local governmental positions. However, the Arroyo administration faced a worsening budget deficit and debt crisis, increased incidence of hunger and poverty, pervasive corruption scandals in the military, inconclusive peace negotiations with communist guerrillas and Muslim separatists, and an unexpected twist in the country's relations with the United States, provoked by a crisis in the Philippines' involvement in Iraq.

China’s Modernising Nuclear Forces: In the Face of US Nuclear Primacy

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (03) ◽  
pp. 108-117
Author(s):  
Bojian LIU
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Early Warning ◽  
Command And Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rapid Response ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Nuclear Forces ◽  
The Face ◽  
And Control

Since 2001, when the United States has accelerated the strengthening of its nuclear primacy with a clearer strategy of assured destruction against any rivals, China has encountered greater pressure to further modernise its nuclear forces. In highlighting the enhanced credibility of its retaliation-based nuclear deterrence under the no-first-use doctrine, China is enhancing command and control of nuclear forces, upgrading its nuclear triad, and constructing its early warning and rapid response capabilities. However, with a further destabilising global nuclear order, more normative challenges have been plaguing China’s nuclear modernisation.

Soviet-American Cultural Encounters in Late Stalinism

2018 ◽  
pp. 58-74
Author(s):  
Rósa Magnúsdóttir
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Stalin Era ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Way

This chapter discusses Soviet efforts to “tell the truth about Soviet socialism” at home and abroad, showing how not only Soviet anti-Americanism but also American McCarthyism stood in the way of the development of Soviet-American cultural relations in the early years of the Cold War. It surveys the way Soviet cultural institutions as well as Soviet front organizations in the United States were organized in the late Stalin era. It puts the spotlight on the most famous American visit in the postwar period, namely the Steinbeck-Capa 1947 tour. It is a remarkable story of how Soviet propaganda authorities tried to explain postwar socialism and control the visitors’ experiences in the Soviet Union, but it also details Steinbeck’s fascination with Soviet knowledge and understanding of the United States (or lack thereof).

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