Strategic stability in the twenty-first century: The challenge of the second nuclear age and the logic of stability interdependence

ABSTRACT

Strategic stability has been a core pillar of nuclear-armed states since the Cold War. Despite remaining an explicit policy preference, challenges posed by the second nuclear age make it increasingly difficult for states to establish and maintain strategic stability. These challenges are based on the growing number of nuclear-armed actors and these states' different motivations and capabilities. Additionally, new conventional weapons systems have added a new layer of complexity. The diversification of ballistic missile roles into the realm of conventional strike platforms coupled with the development of ballistic missile defense, challenges two core components of strategic stability: second-strike capability and mutual vulnerability.

This article addresses these challenges and contends that strategic stability cannot be established through traditional bilateral mechanisms. It argues that states are more strategically interdependent in the second nuclear age. Therefore, they must recognize that developing and deploying these new platforms inevitably affects the nuclear and conventional deterrent capabilities of another state, undermining strategic stability.

Notes on contributor

Zenel Garcia ([email protected]) is a PhD candidate in the international relations program at the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs at Florida International University (FIU). His main focus is foreign policy and security studies with a concentration in East Asia. He received an MA in Asian studies from FIU in 2014 and primarily conducts research on territorial disputes, securitization language, and conflict resolution mechanisms in East Asia.

Notes

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2. Michael S. Gerson, “Origins of Strategic Stability: The United States and the Threat of Surprise Attack,” in Strategic Stability: Contending Interpretations, edited by Elbridge A. Colby and Michael S. Gerson (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2013), 1–46.

3. See Bernard Brodie, “Unlimited Weapons and Limited War,” The Reporter 16 (1954): 18; and Albert Wohlstetter, “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” Foreign Affairs 37, no. 2 (1959): 230.

4. Thomas C. Schelling, Thomas C., “Surprise Attack and Disarmament” (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1958), 2.

5. Ibid., 4

6. Ibid., 6.

7. Gerson, “Origins of Strategic Stability.”

8. Gregory D. Koblentz, “Strategic Stability in the Second Nuclear Age,” Council Special Report No. 71 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2014),vii, http://www.cfr.org/nonproliferation-arms-control-and-disarmament/strategic-stability-second-nuclear-age/p33809.

9. Ibid.

10. Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review Report, 2010, (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2010), iv, http://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/features/defenseReviews/NPR/2010_Nuclear_Posture_Review_Report.pdf.

11. Ibid., iv–v.

12. Ibid., x.

13. See: “Russia,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2015, http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/russia/nuclear/; “United States,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2015, http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/united-states/nuclear/.

14. Russian Federation National Security Strategy, The Kremlin, 2015, http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/41d527556bec8deb3530.pdf.

15. Ibid.

16. Hans M. Kristensen, “Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2015,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 71, no. 4 (2015): 77.

17. Gregory Kulacki, “The Chinese Military Updates China's Nuclear Strategy,” Union of Concerned Scientists, 2015, pp. 1, http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/03/chinese-nuclear-strategy-full-report.pdf.

18. Ibid., 6.

19. Alec Luhn and Julian Borger, “Moscow May Walk Out of a Nuclear Treaty after US Accusations of Breach,” The Guardian, July 29, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/29/moscow-russia-violated-cold-war-nuclear-treaty-iskander-r500-missile-test-us.

20. See Colin S. Gray, The Second Nuclear Age (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999); Michael S. Gerson, “Conventional Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age,” Parameters 9, no. 3 (), 32–48; Robert F. Haffa et al., “Deterrence and Defense in the ‘Second Nuclear Age’” Analysis Center, 2009; Paul Braken, The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2012); and Koblentz, “Strategic Stability.”

21. Ibid.

22. Joseph Cirincione, Bomb Scare: The History & Future of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia Press, 2008).

23. Braken, The Second Nuclear Age, 4.

24. Ibid., 4–6.

25. Terence Neilan, “Bush Pulls Out of ABM Treaty; Putin Calls Move a Mistake,” The New York Times, December 13, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/13/international/bush-pulls-out-of-abm-treaty-putin-calls-move-a-mistake.html.

26. Department of Defense, Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report, 2010, (Washington, DC: DOD, 2010), 34–35, http://archive.defense.gov/bmdr/docs/BMDR%20as%20of%2026JAN10%200630_for%20web.pdf.

27. Ibid., 5–6

28. U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2015 Annual Report (Washington, DC: Author, 2015), http://origin.www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/annual_reports/2015%20Annual%20Report%20to%20Congress.PDF.

29. M. Fravel, and Fiona S. Cunningham, “Assuring Assured Retaliation,” International Security 40, no. 2 (2015): 18.

30. “Russia Successfully Test-Fires Anti-Ballistic Missile—Defense Ministry,” RT, June 21, 2016, https://www.rt.com/news/347577-russia-missile-defense-test/.

31. See “Putin: ‘We Know When the US Will Get New Missile Threatening Russia's Nuclear Capability’” RT, June 18, 2016, https://www.rt.com/news/347313-putin-us-missile-defense-nuclear/; Fravel and Cunningham, “Assuring Assured Retaliation,” 19.

32. Brian Weeden, Through a Glass, Darkly: Chinese, American, and Russian Anti-Satellite Testing in Space (Broomfield, CO: Secure World Foundation, 2014), 28, 34, https://swfound.org/media/167224/through_a_glass_darkly_march2014.pdf.

33. Sean O'Connor, “Russian/Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems,” Air Power Australia, 2012, http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Rus-ABM-Systems.html.

34. Martin Andrew, “A Strategic Assessment of PLA Theater Missile and ASAT Capabilities,” Air Power Australia, 2010, http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2010-02.html#mozTocId243268.

35. “China Ballistic Missile Defense,” Global Security, 2016, http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/world/china/abm.htm.

36. U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2015 Annual Report.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid., 21.

39. Andrew S. Erickson, Chinese Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) Development: Drivers, Trajectories and Strategic Implications (Washington DC: Jamestown Foundation, 2013).

40. Amy F. Woolf, “Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2016), https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R41464.pdf

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid., 2–4.

43. Ibid., 2.

44. Lora Saalman, Prompt Global Strike: China and the Spear (Honolulu, HI: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2014), 7–9, http://apcss.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/APCSS_Saalman_PGS_China_Apr2014.pdf.

45. Woolf, “Conventional Prompt Global Strike.

46. Fravel and Cunningham, “Assuring Assured Retaliation,” 22.

47. Weeden, Through a Glass, 26.

48. Ibid.

49. See Laura Grego, A History of Anti-Satellite Programs (Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists, 2012), http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nwgs/a-history-of-ASAT-programs_lo-res.pdf; Weeden, Through a Glass,; Bill Gertz, “Russia Flight Tests Anti-Satellite Missile,” The Washington Free Beacon, December 2, 2015, Retrieved from http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-conducts-successful-flight-test-of-anti-satellite-missile/.

50. Weeden, Through a Glass.

51. U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2015 Annual Report., 16.

52. Weeden, Through a Glass.

53. Ibid., 34.

54. Andrew Futter, Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons: New Questions for Command and Control, Security and Strategy (London, UK: Royal United Services Institute, 2016), 2, https://rusi.org/sites/default/files/cyber_threats_and_nuclear_combined.1.pdf.

55. “Global Zero Commission on Nuclear Risk Reduction: De-Alerting and Stabilizing the World's Nuclear Force Structures,” Global Zero, 2015, http://www.globalzero.org/files/global_zero_commission_on_nuclear_risk_reduction_report.pdf.

56. Ian E. Rinehart, The Chinese Military: Overview and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2016),7, 16, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R44196.pdf.

57. See U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2015 Annual Report, 20–21; Woolf, “Conventional Prompt Global Strike, 32; Ian E. Rinehart, Steven Hildreth, and Susan V. Lawrence,, Ballistic Missile Defense in the Asia-Pacific Region: Cooperation and Opposition (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2015), 1, 3–4, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R43116.pdf; Marshall Hoyler, “China's 'Antiaccess' Ballistic Missiles and U.S. Active Defense,” Naval War College Review 63, no. 4 (2012): 85.

58. See Richard Weitz, “Common Fears, Different Approaches to U.S. BMD for Russia, China,” World Politics Review, 2012, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12524/global-insights-common-fears-different-approaches-to-u-s-bmd-for-russia-china; James M. Acton, “Prompt Global Strike: American and Foreign Developments,” Congressional Testimony, December 8, 2015, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS29/20151208/104276/HHRG-114-AS29-Wstate-ActonJ-20151208.pdf.

59. Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, “The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of U.S. Primacy,” International Security 30, no. 4 (2006): 7–44.

60. Yogesh Joshi, Frank O'Donnell, and Harsh V. Pant, India's Evolving Nuclear Force and Its Implications for U.S. Strategy in the Asia–Pacific (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2016), http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID = 1320.

61. Michael Chase and Arthur Chan, China's Evolving Approach to ”Integrated Defense” (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016), 48–49, http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1366.html.

62. Rachel Oswald, “Russia Insists on Multilateral Nuclear Arms Control Talks,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2013, http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/russia-insists-next-round-nuke-cuts-be-multilateral/.

63. Treaty between the United States of America and the Unions of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limitation on Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1972), http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/abm/abm2.html.

64. Ibid.

65. See Baohui Zhang, “US Missile Defense and China's Nuclear Posture: Changing Dynamics of an Offense-Defense Arms Race,” International Affairs 87, no. 3 (2011): 555–569; and Ariel Cohen, “Putin and Medyedev Threaten a New Arms Race,” The Daily Signal, December 13, 2010, http://dailysignal.com/2010/12/03/putin-and-medvedev-threaten-a-renewed-arms-race/.

66. See Hoyler, “China's “Antiaccess” Ballistic Missiles; Laura Grego, George N. Lewis, and David Wright, Shielded from Oversight: The Disastrous US Approach to Strategic Missile Defense (Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists, 2016), http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/07/Shielded-from-Oversight-full-report.pdf; and David Mosher “Understanding the Extraordinary Cost of Missile Defense,” Arms Control Today, 2000, http://www.rand.org/natsec_area/products/missiledefense.html.

67. Fravel and Cunningham, “Assuring Assured Retaliation,” 18.

68. See Bruce MacDonald and Charles D. Ferguson, Understanding the Dragon Shield: Likelihood and Implications of a Chinese Strategic Ballistic Missile Defense (Washington, DC: Federation of American Scientists, 2015), https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/DragonShieldreport_FINAL.pdf; and Keir Giles, Russia Ballistic Missile Defense: Rhetoric and Reality (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2015), http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub1277.pdf.

69. Grego, A History of Anti-Satellite Programs; Weeden, Through a Glass; Gertz, “Russia Flight Tests.”

70. Gertz, “Russia Flight Tests.”

71. “Global Zero Commission on Nuclear Risk Reduction.”