Obama's Second Term: Time for a New Discourse on Nuclear Strategy

Abstract

President Obama's policy toward nuclear weapons has seriously undermined the flexibility and credibility of U.S. nuclear strategy. As a consequence of its desire to provide leadership on nuclear abolition, nuclear strategy under the Obama administration is shallow and unconvincing. This article seeks to put strategy back at the center of discourse on U.S. nuclear weapons policy. In this endeavor, and in contrast to Obama's stated stance, this article resurrects some important elements of Cold War strategic thinking on the subject. Warfighting, nuclear bargaining, and escalation dominance are particularly worthy of renewed attention.

Notes

1. Suzanne Goldenberg, “Obama Vows to Take Personal Charge of Climate Change in Second Term,” available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/14/obama-climate-change-second-term

2. For example, Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, described the policy as a positive step. See Ewen MacAskill, “Barack Obama's Radical Review on Nuclear Weapons Reverses Bush Policies,” available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/06/barack-obama-nuclear-weapons-review

3. There is some concern that, due to counting methods in the treaty, numbers of deployed warheads could actually increase. David J. Trachtenberg, “Six Myths About the New START Treaty,” available at http://www.defensestudies.org/?p = 2093

4. Lawrence Wittner, “Is the Obama Administration Abandoning Its Commitment to a Nuclear-free World?” available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-wittner/obama-nuclear-free-world_b_2616701.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

5. Hans M. Kristensen, “Remarks on Nuclear Modernization,” available at http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/publications1/2012_BASICmodernization111312.pdf

6. Stephen M. Walt, “Nuclear Posture Review (or Nuclear Public Relations?),” available at http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/06/nuclear_posture_review_or_nuclear_public_relations

7. Hans M. Kristensen, “The Nuclear Posture Review,” available at http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2010/04/npr2010.php

8. Cited in Hans M. Kristensen, “Obama and the Nuclear War Plan,” available at http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/publications1/WarPlanIssueBrief2010.pdf

9. For a more in-depth discussion of strategy, see Thomas M. Kane and David J. Lonsdale, Understanding Contemporary Strategy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012).

10. Eliot A. Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: The Free Press, 2002).

11. Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 17.

12. Gray, Modern Strategy, 25.

13. Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976).

14. Quoted in Anna Loukianova, “The Nuclear Posture Review Debate,” available at http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_nuclear_posture_review_debate.html

15. Nuclear Posture Review Report (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2010), v–vi.

16. In reality, massive retaliation was not quite as simplistic as it is often portrayed. Nonetheless, the Eisenhower administration made little effort to flesh out the details of its declaratory policy. Hence the public caricature of the policy remained. For a discussion of this see Lawrence Freedman, “The First Two Generations of Nuclear Strategists,” in Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 740–741.

17. Nuclear Posture Review [Excerpts], available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm

18. Kristensen, “Obama and the Nuclear War Plan.”

19. Nuclear Posture Review Report, xiii.

20. Keith B. Payne, “Nuclear Deterrence for a New Century,” The Journal of International Security Affairs (Spring 2006): 10, available at http://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/2006/10/payne.php

21. The NPR does leave the door open for a return to greater reliance on nuclear weapons to deter NPT-compliant states, but only if biological weapons evolve and proliferate significantly. Nuclear Posture Review Report, viii.

22. John Pike, “Nuclear Threats During the Gulf War,” available at http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/ds-threats.htm

23. David J. Trachtenberg, “Assessing the NPR: A Closer Look,” available at http://www.defensestudies.org/?p=2274#more-2274

24. For a discussion of this see Julian Borger, “Obama Accused of Nuclear U-Turn as Guided Weapons Plan Emerges,” The Guardian, available at www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/21/obama-accused-nuclear-guided-weapons-plan?CMP=twt_gu

25. Nuclear Posture Review Report, 27.

26. Nuclear Posture Review Report, xiii.

27. Ibid., viii.

28. See Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980); and Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966).

29. Nuclear Posture Review Report, 16.

30. Ibid., 17.

31. For discussions on the development of the SIOP, see David Alan Rosenberg, “U.S. Nuclear War Planning, 1945–1960,” in Desmond Ball and Jeffrey Richelson, eds., Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 35–56; and Desmond Ball, “The Development of the SIOP, 1960–1983,” in Ball and Richelson, eds., Strategic Nuclear Targeting, 57–83.

32. For a discussion of victory in nuclear war, see Colin S. Gray and Keith B. Payne, “Victory is Possible,” Foreign Policy, vol. 39 (Summer, 1980): 14–27.

33. Nuclear Posture Review Report, iv.

34. Colin S. Gray, “Warfighting for Deterrence,” Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 7, no. 1 (1984): 5–28.

35. Herman Kahn, On Escalation: Methaphors and Scenarios (London: Pall Mall Press, 1965).

36. Indeed, Keir A. Lieber, and Daryl G. Press argue that under the Bush administration, relative improvements in capability meant that the U.S. was set to achieve primacy over its nuclear rivals (Russia and China). It could be argued that Obama, although he maintains the capability advantage, is throwing away this primacy by undermining perceptions of America's will to use its nuclear forces. See Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, “The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of U.S. Primacy,” International Security, vol. 30, no. 4 (Spring 2006): 7–44. For a response to Lieber and Press see Peter C. W. Flory et al. “Nuclear Exchange: Does Washington Really Have (or Want) Nuclear Primacy?” Foreign Affairs, vol. 85, no. 5 (Sep/Oct 2006): 149–157.

37. Kristensen, “Obama and the Nuclear War Plan,” 7.

38. Nuclear Posture Review Report, iv, vi.

39. Herman Kahn, Thinking about the Unthinkable (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962).

40. Clausewitz, On War, 606.

41. Colin S. Gray, Strategy and History: Essays on Theory and Practice (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 127–128.

42. Ariel Cohen, “Obama's Approach to Arms Control Misreads Russian Nuclear Strategy,” available at http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/04/obamas-approach-to-arms-control-misreads-russian-nuclear-strategy

43. Nuclear Posture Review Report, xi.

44. Ibid., 33.

45. Ballistic Missile Defence Review Report (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2010), 11.

46. Ibid., 13.

47. Ibid., 12.

48. Nuclear Posture Review Report, iv.