Futile superiority: Decision making and the development of new-generation nuclear weapons

ABSTRACT

This article covers the history of nuclear weapons development in the United States by comparing the debates over each weapon generation, dividing the influencing factors into strategic and nonstrategic considerations. Though strategic factors seem to be more dominant, they are clearly influenced by nonstrategic factors and vice versa. The comparison also provides insight on how bureaucratic pluralism can be used to strengthen political pressure on the bureaucracy. The conclusions of this article may serve to gain better understanding of the ongoing debate regarding the moral and strategic effects of a new generation of nuclear weapons, should such weapons be proven feasible.

Notes on contributor

Baruch N. Malewich ([email protected]) holds a master of philosophy degree in international relations and politics from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. He completed his bachelor of Arts degree in the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary College (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel. While completing his undergraduate degree, Mr. Malewich has been a member of the Comparative National Security Project, which aims to explore theoretical, historical, and empirical questions pertaining to international security studies. Mr. Malewich was also a fellow of the Argov Program in Leadership and Diplomacy. His current research deals with the formation of moral beliefs amongst—and the lived experience of—weapon designers, and especially nuclear weapon scientists. Mr. Malewich will be pursuing a PhD in these fields.

Notes

1. Scott D. Sagan, “Why Do Sates Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb,” International Security, vol. 21, no. 3 (1997): 54–86.

2. Matthew Evangelista's 1988 book, Innovation and the Arms Race: How the United States and the Soviet Union Develop New Military Technologies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), inspects the various factors that led to the development of tactical nuclear weapons in the U.S. Mary Kaldor's 1981 book, The Baroque Arsenal (London: Andre Deutsch, 1982), focuses on explaining “the way we arm” and the existence of robust nuclear arsenals. Etel Solingen's Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009) tries to explain nuclear behavior through the scope of processes such as globalization, international institutions, norms, and democratization. Matthew Fuhrmann's Atomic Assistance: How “Atoms for Peace” Programs Cause Nuclear Insecurity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012) investigates peaceful nuclear cooperation as a mean that often backfires and leads to nuclear weapon acquisition of a previously nonnuclear state. Matthew Kroenig's Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010) similarly deals with questions of assistance, but is specifically dedicated to cases where the nature of the cooperation was oriented to the construction of nuclear weapons. In contrast, Jacques E. C. Hymans's The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006) focuses on the individual leader level, rather than the state's level, and his Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientists, Politicians, and Proliferation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012) deals with interplay between leaders and scientific and technical institutions around the development of nuclear weapons. Finally, Donald A. MacKenzie's 1993 book, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), attempts to understand the development of nuclear missile guidance as a historical and social process.

3. The first generation of nuclear weapons is defined as pure-fission weapons and includes the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the second generation of nuclear weapons is defined as weapons that include thermonuclear fuel—namely deuterium-tritium pellets—and include the Hydrogen bomb and boosted atomic bombs; the third generation of nuclear weapons is defined as nuclear weapons with tailored effects—such as enhanced radiation, EMP weapons, etc.—the Neutron bomb is the most familiar weapon of this generation; finally, while never developed but certainly researched, the fourth generation of nuclear weapons is defined as pure-fusion weapons, in which the thermonuclear fuel is ignited without nuclear fission.

4. Gregg Herken, Cardinal Choices: Presidential Science Advising from the Atomic Bomb to SDI (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992).

5. David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994); Robert Jungk, Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists (New York: Mariner Books, 1970).

6. For further reading on the historical background of the first generation of nuclear weapons, see Jungk, Brighter; Herken, Cardinal Choices; Holloway, Stalin; Herbert F. York, The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989); Richard Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012); Lenny Flank, Hell's Fire: A Documentary History of the American Atomic and Thermonuclear Weapons Programs, from Hiroshima to the Cold War and the War on Terror (Detroit: Red & Black Pub, 2008); Herbert Frank York, Arms and the Physicist (College Park: American Institute of Physics, 1995); Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: Random House, 2005); Jim Baggott The First War of Physics: The Secret History of the Atom Bomb, 1939–1949 (New York: Open Road Media, 2011); Kelly Moore, Disrupting Science: Social Movements, American Scientists, and the Politics of the Military, 1945–1975 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009); Joseph M. Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Stephen M. Younger, The Bomb: A New History (New York: Ecco Press, 2009).

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8. O'Neill, A Democracy at War.

9. York, Arms and the Physicist.

10. Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962); Keegan, John. Intelligence in War. Random House, 2010.

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12. Warren F. Kimball, The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994); Steven Casey, Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War against Nazi Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

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15. Casey, Cautious Crusade.

16. However, as the war seemed imminent, the United States government did create the National Defense Research Committee and the Office of Scientific Research and Development, offices in charge of scientific advice to the president. Moore, Disrupting Science; Herken, Cardinal Choices.

17. Reginald Victor Jones, Most Secret War. (, UK: Penguin, 2009).

18. Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons.

19. Herken, Cardinal Choices.

20. Ibid.

21. Jungk, Brighter.

22. Moore, Disrupting Science.

23. Jungk, Brighter.

24. Herken, Cardinal Choices.

25. Ibid.

26. York, Arms and the Physicist.

27. Herken, Cardinal Choices.

28. Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (Simon and Schuster, 2002).

29. Rhodes, Dark Sun.

30. Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons.

31. Ibid.

32. Rhodes, Dark Sun; Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons.

33. Ibid; ibid.

34. York, Arms and the Physicist, for further reading on the historical background and debate over second-generation nuclear weapons, see: Rhodes, Dark Sun; Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons; Younger, The Bomb; Baggott, The First War; Bird & Sherwin, American Prometheus; Pry & Hostyn, The Role of Congress; York, The Advisors.; York, Arms and the Physicist; Herken, Cardinal Choices; Jungk, Brighter; Flank, Hell's Fire; and Paul Rubinson, “‘Crucified on a Cross of Atoms': Scientists, Politics, and the Test Ban Treaty,” Diplomatic History, vol. 35, no. 2 (2011): 283–319.

35. Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons.

36. Holloway, Stalin; Younger, The Bomb.

37. York, Arms and the Physicist.

38. Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons.

39. Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons; Rhodes, Dark Sun.

40. David Alan Rosenberg, “The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945–1960,” International Security, vol. 7, no. 4 (1983): 3–71.

41. Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons.

42. Jerry Miller, Stockpile: The Story behind 10,000 Strategic Nuclear Weapons (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010).

43. Paul, “Crucified.”

44. Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons.

45. Rhodes, Dark Sun.

46. York, Arms and the Physicist.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid.

49. York, Arms and the Physicist; Pry & Hostyn, The Role of Congress.

50. York, Arms and the Physicist.

51. Rhodes, Dark Sun.

52. Pry & Hostyn, The Role of Congress.

53. Paul, ““Crucified”; Licklider, Roy E. “The Private Nuclear Strategists,” PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1968.

54. Paul, “Crucified.”

55. York, Arms and the Physicist, 59.

56. Herken, Cardinal Choices, 47.

57. York, Arms and the Physicist.

58. Pry & Hostyn, The Role of Congress.

59. Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons.

60. Rhodes, Dark Sun.

61. Baggott, The First War.

62. Rubinson, “Crucified”; Herken, Cardinal Choices.

63. York, Arms and the Physicist.

64. Pry & Hostyn, The Role of Congress.

65. Rubinson, “Crucified”; Harvey M. Sapolsky, Eugene Gholz, and Caitlin Talmadge, US Defense Politics: The Origins of Security Policy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013).

66. Robert D. MacFadden, “Samuel T. Cohen, Neutron Bomb Inventor, Dies at 89,” The New York Times, December 1, 2010, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/02cohen.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (accessed February 8, 2014).

67. Stephen Miller, “Neutron Bomb Was His Life's Mission,” The Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2010, available at http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703994904575647123407618324 (accessed February 8, 2014).

68. Francis J. Gavin, Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America's Atomic Age (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012).

69. Richard Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (New York: Random House, 2008).

70. Jorma K. Miettinen, “Mini-Nukes and Neutron Bombs: Modernization of NATO's Tactical Nuclear Weapons; Introduction of Enhanced Radiation Warheads,” Instant Research on Peace and Violence, vol. 7, no. 2 (1977): 49–58.

71. Ibid.

72. Miller, Stockpile. For further expansion on the historical background of the third generation of nuclear weapons, see Gavin, Nuclear Statecraft; Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly; Herken, Cardinal Choices; York, Arms and the Physicist; Michael A. Aquino, “The Neutron Bomb,” PhD dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1980; and Pry and Hostyn, The Role of Congress.

73. Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly, 134.

74. Younger, The Bomb.

75. Miller, Stockpile; Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly.

76. Aquino, “The Neutron Bomb.”

77. Miller, Stockpile; Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly.

78. Nina Tannenwald. The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons since 1945 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

79. Pry and Hostyn, The Role of Congress; Alex A. Vardamis, The Neutron Warhead: Stormy Past, Uncertain Future (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Army War College, 1978; Pat Towell, “Neutron Bomb Poses Dilemma for Congress,” Congressional Quarterly, July 9, 1977.

80. Vardamis, The Neutron Warhead; Miettinen, “Mini-Nukes.”

81. Aquino, “The Neutron Bomb.”

82. Aquino, “The Neutron Bomb”; Tannenwald.

83. Younger, The Bomb.

84. Miettinen, “Mini-Nukes.”

85. Tannenwald; Aquino, “The Neutron Bomb.”

86. Pry & Hostyn, The Role of Congress.

87. Robert D. McFadden, “Samuel T. Cohen, Neutron Bomb Inventor, Dies at 89,” The New York Times, December 1, 2010, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/02cohen.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

88. Steven P. Lee. Morality, Prudence, and Nuclear Weapons (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

89. Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 70, no. 1 (1990): 23–33.

90. Richard Rhodes, Twilight of the Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World without Nuclear Weapons (New York: Random House, 2011).

91. Rhodes, Twilight; Miller, Stockpile.

92. Ibid; ibid.

93. Ibid; ibid; Jonathan Medalia, Nuclear Weapon Initiatives: Low-Yield R&D, Advanced Concepts, Earth Penetrators, Test Readiness, No. CRS-RL32130 (Fort Belvoir, VA: Defense Acquisition University, David D Acker Library and Knowledge Repository, 2004).

94. Miller, Stockpile; Christopher E. Paine and Matthew G. McKinzie, “Does the US Science‐Based Stockpile Stewardship Program Pose a Proliferation Threat?” Science & Global Security, vol. 7, no. 2 (1998): 151–193.

95. Edward I. Moses, “The National Ignition Facility: Status and Plans for Laser Fusion and High-Energy-Density Experimental Studies,” paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Accelerator & Large Experimental Physics Control Systems, San Jose, November 2001.

96. Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010).

97. Stephen M. Younger, “Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First Century,” Los Alamos National Laboratory Report LAUR-00-2850 (Los Alamos, NM: Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2000); Benjamin Sims and Christopher R. Henke, “Repairing Credibility: Repositioning Nuclear Weapons Knowledge after the Cold War,” Social Studies of Science, vol. 42, no. 3 (2012).

98. Ibid; ibid, p. 19.

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100. David Trachtenberg and Peter Pry, “Understanding American Nuclear Weapons Policy and Strategy: A Citizen's Guide to the Nuclear Posture Review and the Role of Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century” (Washington, DC: United States Nuclear Strategy Forum, 2005), 1. For further reading on the RNEP, see Christopher Paine, M. McKinzie, T. Cochran, and R. Nоrris, “Countering Proliferation or Compounding It?” (New York: Natural Resources Defense Council, 2003), 18; Robert W. Nelson, “Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons,” Science and Global Security, vol. 10, no. 1 (2002): 1–20; Johnathan Medalia, “Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator Budget Request and Plan, FY2005–FY2009,” Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, 2004.

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102. Hans M. Kristensen, “US Strategic War Planning after 9/11,” Nonproliferation Review, vol. 14, no. 2 (2007): 373–390.

103. Jonathan Medalia, Reliable Replacement Warhead Program: Background and Current Developments (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2011).

104. United States Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review Report (Washington, DC: DOD, 2010); National Institute for Public Policy, Planning the Future US Nuclear Force (Fairfax, VA: NIPP, 2010): 1–216; Joseph Cirincione, “Taking the Field: Obama's Nuclear Reforms,” Survival, vol. 52, no. 2 (2010): 117–128; W. J. Perry, J. R. Schlesinger, H. Cartland, F. Ikle, J. Foster, K. Payne, … & J. Woolsey America's Strategic Posture: The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. Advance Copy. (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2009).

105. Bird and Sherwin. American Prometheus.

106. Suzanne L. Jones and Frank N. von Hippel. “The Question of Pure Fusion Explosions under the CTBT,” Science & Global Security, vol. 7, no. 2 (1998): 129–150.

107. Ibid.

108. Little to no academically certified information is publicly available on the topic, yet for further reading on the physics and effects of pure fusions weapons, see Jason D. Wood, “Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons: Moving the Nuclear Debate Beyond Fission” (Project on Nuclear Issues, United States Defense Threat Reduction Agency, March 27, 2009); André Gsponer and Jean-Pierre Hurni, “ITER: The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor and the Nuclear Weapons Proliferation Implications of Thermonuclear-Fusion Energy Systems,” arXiv preprint physics/0401110 (2004); Jones and von Hippel, “The Question of Pure Fusion”; Gsponer, “Fourth-Generation Nuclear Weapons: Military Effectiveness and Collateral Effects,” arXiv preprint physics/0510071 (2005); Gsponer, Hurni, and Bruno Vitale, “A Comparison of Delayed Radiobiological Effects of Depleted-Uranium Munitions versus Fourth-Generation Nuclear Weapons,” arXiv preprint physics/0210071 (2002); Andre Gsponer, “The B61-Based ‘Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator’: Clever Retrofit or Headway towards Fourth-Generation Nuclear Weapons?” arXiv preprint physics/0510052 (2005); Gsponer and Hurni, “ITER”; and Bryan Fearey, “An Analysis of Reduced Collateral Damage Nuclear Weapons,” Comparative Strategy, vol. 22, no. 4 (2003): 305–324.

109. York, Arms and the Physicist, 59.