Last month, several leading newspapers reported that the Pentagon is reviewing U.S. nuclear force "requirements" in connection with ongoing U.S.-Russian talks on the outlines of a third strategic arms reduction treaty (START III). A "senior" Pentagon official who spoke with The New York Times and who is familiar with the review said: "We are not looking outside the [2000-2500] range, and no one has come to us yet with pressure to say, we need to go below those numbers."

Why can't the Pentagon accommodate a lowering of the START III floor to a level below 2,000 strategic weapons? The answer is actually quite simple, algebraic actually. It is because the strategic war plan – known as the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) – consists of a very long and redundant list of targets in Russia and a shorter list of targets in China that Pentagon planners say the U.S. needs to be able to destroy in order to meet the latest presidential guidance on nuclear war planning (Presidential Decision Directive 60, issued in November 1997).

Nuclear Target Proliferation

Oddly enough, the targeting list has been growing instead of contracting since START II was originally signed in 1993. The target list has grown by 20% over the last five years alone. The vast bulk of the targets are located in Russia. The former nuclear republics of the USSR (Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan) were dropped from the SIOP in 1997, but nevertheless the list grew from 2,500 in 1995 to 3,000 in the year 2000.

There are about 2,260 "vital" Russian targets on the list today, divided into the four traditional categories – nuclear (1,100), conventional (500), leadership (160), and war-supporting industry (500). It is important to consider that there are 500 nuclear weapons aimed at a Russian army on the verge of a nervous breakdown; that there are 160 nuclear weapons aimed at leadership targets in a country that is practically devoid of leadership; and nuclear weapons aimed at 500 factories that produced almost zero armaments last year.

As a rule of thumb, U.S. strategic planners historically set the required level of damage against vital targets at the 80% "damage-expectancy" level. This is tantamount to requiring our strategic forces to be able to destroy 80% of the 2,260 Russian targets, which in turn requires the ability to deliver approximately 1,800 warheads to their targets.

It is no accident that we have about 2,300 strategic missile warheads on launch-ready alert at this very moment (98% of the Minuteman III and Peacekeeper land-based force on 2-minute launch readiness plus 4 Trident submarines, two in the Atlantic and two in the Pacific, on 15-minute launch readiness). The land-based missiles need to launch on warning to ensure the survival and launch of U.S. forces that are sufficiently lethal against very hard targets such as Russian silos to meet the damage requirements.

If U.S. strategic forces have to quickly deliver at least 1800 warheads, then the Pentagon says we need a larger arsenal in total because of the unavoidable demands of replenishment and maintenance. For instance, typically, 6 out of the 18 Trident submarines are port-bound at any time and cannot be counted upon to survive and deliver nuclear warheads. Thus, the U.S. needs one-third more sea-based strategic weapons than it can expect to deliver in wartime.

New Targets for American Nuclear Bombs

Additional targeting requirements drive up the numbers of total strategic weapons in the U.S. arsenal. In 1998-99, the Pentagon put China back into the SIOP after a hiatus of about 20 years. (This was the result of President Clinton's 1997 nuclear guidance.) There are now two "Limited Attack Options" (LAOs) involving a handful of U.S. Trident sub and bomber weapons in each case assigned to attack Chinese leadership, nuclear targets, and critical industries. By comparison, the SIOP consists of 65 LAOs against Russia, each ranging from 2 to 120 weapons; and a handful of Major Attack Options, the smallest of which would send more than 1,000 U.S. strategic warheads to attack Russia's nuclear complex.

In addition, there are hundreds of non-SIOP targets in China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea that have been assigned to the U.S. strategic forces (so-called strategic reserve forces). This targeting requirement further drives up the size of the U.S. strategic arsenal.

Add it all up, and you get 2,500 U.S. warheads at minimum that are deemed necessary to fulfill the SIOP goals against Russia and China (the two countries that, as Vice-President Gore says, represent our "vital partners," not our "enemies"). The START III floor may be lowered somewhat because several hundred hard targets (silos) in Russia will disappear as a result of START II or III reductions or obsolescence over the next decade.

Toward A More Sober Nuclear Policy

Getting below 2,000 will be difficult unless the SIOP target requirements are eased by new presidential guidance, which of course they could be. No sober U.S. general, much less a political leader, really believes that deterrence depends on the present scale of massive nuclear operations in wartime. Almost without exception, they regard the "Major Attack Options" that unleash thousands of nuclear warheads as absurd and grotesquely massive. They do not believe that a cold-blooded, deliberate nuclear strike by Russia or the United States against each other is remotely plausible.. The only plausible scenarios for them are usually contingencies that involve the use of one or a handful of U.S. nuclear weapons (usually tactical rather than strategic weapons) against a country other than Russia.

There is no doubt whatsoever that deterrence would remain robust with far smaller arsenals on far lower levels of alert. The United States could easily drop to 1,500 warheads – the force ceiling under consideration in the START III talks with Russia. Such a force could consist of: 10 Trident submarines armed with 24 missiles each, and 2 warheads per missile (480 in total); 300 Minuteman III land-based missiles with one warhead apiece (300 warheads); 20 B-2 bombers with 16 weapons apiece (320 in total); and 50 B-52 bombers modified to carry 8 warheads apiece (400 in total), for a grand total of 1,500 warheads.

Alternatively, the Trident submarines could carry START II loadings of 5 warheads per missile, for a total of 1200 warheads, in lieu of the B-2 and B-52 bomber force, which could be retired from the strategic arsenal. However, U.S. strategic planners cringe at the thought of removing a leg from the vaunted TRIAD, a vestige of Cold War-era inter-service rivalry. Various intermediate loadings offer practical alternatives.

U.S. nuclear deterrent "requirements" could be adequately met with 1,500 strategic nuclear weapons. This force level would be more than necessary to assure the destruction of 250 targets of any choice in retaliation for any sudden strike under normal conditions, and assured destruction of 1,000 targets in retaliation to an attack in crisis conditions. If this degree of nuclear threat projection does not deter a prospective adversary, it is difficult to conceive of a retaliatory threat that would.

Call outs

“The target list has grown by 20% over the last five years alone.”

“2,500 U.S. warheads...are deemed necessary to fulfill the SIOP goals.”

“Deterrence would remain robust with far smaller arsenals on far lower levels of alert.”

For more details and analysis, visit CDI's Nuclear Proliferation page.
 

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