Sitzkrieg in Nuclear Arms Control
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Summary
Although the expiration of the New START agreement and rising doubts about the utility of arms control have become apparent, abandoning discussions on further arms agreements will be a strategically shortsighted. Although the Russian aggression in Ukraine, Russian modernisation of its nuclear forces and increasing military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing have added to the threat environment, a fully uncontrolled nuclear arms race will lead to mistrust and escalate the chances of nuclear escalation.
The expiry of the New START agreement in February of this year is a milestone, but not necessarily a positive one. The Trump administration seems to feel that New START has outlived its usefulness and that, if necessary and expedient, a newer agreement can be reached between the United States and Russia. Critics of nuclear arm control maintain that Russia cannot be trusted to keep any agreement that it signs, that Russia is intent upon a nuclear modernisation program without apparent limit, and that the combination of Russian and Chinese nuclear force building leaves the U.S. no choice but to bypass further negotiations. To the contrary, from this perspective, the United States should press the accelerator on modernisation of its own strategic nuclear forces and, as well, continue with plans to develop and deploy a Golden Dome antimissile defence shield.
This negative assessment of nuclear arms control by the Trump administration and other pessimists is not entirely without merit. Russia’s obstinacy in resisting a peace agreement with Ukraine, despite consistent negotiations with the United States, Ukraine, NATO and other interlocutors, has spilled over into distrust of Russia’s intentions more generally. President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have offered numerous opportunities for progress on slowing down the intensity of the fighting in Ukraine and or for a cease fire and permanent peace agreement.
Putin thus far has conceded nothing. His bombardment of Ukrainian civil infrastructure with missiles and drones has in fact accelerated in recent months, with special emphasis on the destruction of Ukrainian power grids and other vital infrastructure. Nor, despite some indications that the Russian economy is taking hits from international economic sanctions, is there significant elite opposition within Russia to prolonging this war. Even the disturbingly high casualty rates for Russian combatants in Ukraine have not slowed down Putin’s determination to continue the fighting.
In addition, and more specifically relevant to prospects for nuclear arms limitation, Putin and other leaders continue to boast about new generations of strategic weapons that can bypass and conceivable antimissile defences and target U.S. military or other assets. These weapons include nuclear powered and nuclear armed cruise missiles, drone torpedoes with transoceanic reach and nuclear capability, and intermediate range conventional and nuclear capable ballistic missiles. Russia also continues to modernise its singular inventory of so-called non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons available for airborne, sea based and land based launchers.
Russia and China have moved into a closer military alliance in the past few years and have held combined military exercises that appear to include simulations of nuclear first use. China’s determination to become a third nuclear superpower faces the United States with a bilateral threat from a combined Russian and Chinese supersized deterrent which might challenge the survivability of at least two elements of the American strategic nuclear triad: land based intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs; and the U.S. strategic bomber force. Russia’s Zapad – 2025 military exercise in conjunction with Belarus involved the simulated use of a large number of tactical nuclear weapons.
More muscular Russian and Chinese nuclear deterrents do not necessarily take the case for arms control off the table. The answer to Russian and Chinese force building is arguably more nuanced than competitive piling up of warheads and launchers by the United States. An open ended arms race might well create a situation that increases the likelihood of political mistrust and, therefore, the possibility of a failure in nuclear crisis management. The reason for this is that nuclear deterrence stability depends upon more than the sizes of forces: i.e., of hardware and heavy metal. Deterrence stability also depends upon software: the command and control systems for the management of nuclear operations and the expectations of decision makers during periods of tension and political crisis.
For example: during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the United States had unquestioned nuclear superiority in strategic nuclear forces relative to those of the Soviet Union. Both the Soviets and the Americans clearly understood this. Nevertheless, President John F. Kennedy and his advisors were very careful to emphasise the control of escalation and, in particular, the possibility of misunderstanding about each side’s intentions based on faulty interpretation of their military moves. Even so, there were a number of episodes during the crisis that later study concluded had the potential to unravel the shared expectations of Kennedy and Khrushchev about the priority of avoiding an outbreak of nuclear war.
The vulnerability of nuclear command and control systems during the Cold War has not necessarily been circumvented by improved technology for post-Cold War nuclear forces. Regardless the technology, the human factor dominates nuclear crisis management, requiring heads of state and their military advisors to make expedient decisions under conditions of information uncertainty, high emotional stress, and reduced decision time. Expectations that this entire process of crisis management can be outsourced to an AI system or other automated decision aids are apt to be disappointed. Getting inside the heads of crisis time political leaders requires subtle appreciation of their perceptions, expectations, military and political backgrounds, and other “spongy” factors that do not lend themselves to precise analysis. In lieu of a computer model or program that provides an objective answer, leaders in crisis are often left with fractured behavioural assumptions that defy scientific models of behaviour.
There is also the issue of “how much is enough” for nuclear deterrence. It takes a small number of survivable strategic nuclear forces to create historically unprecedented and humanely unacceptable damage. This remains true even if missile defences can leapfrog into a next generation of antimissile intercept capability. Political leaders should also be reminded that, in the event of failed deterrence and nuclear attacks, their own personal survival will be at risk. The locations of political and military leaders will doubtless be known and specifically targeted with bunker busting weapons. Any future head of state who lets loose the incubus of nuclear war should be reminded that his or her head will be on the platter of high value targets.
Therefore, one benefit from nuclear arms control, in addition to the potential for limitation of force sizes and redundancy in weapons, is the development of leaders’ insights into the reality of nuclear war and the priority of deterrence short of war, compared to the expectation that nuclear wars can have winners and losers. For this purpose, understanding the other side’s strategic culture is an important component of arms control management to a favourable outcome. For example: Dmitri Adamsky notes that the Russian approach to deterrence includes cultural, ideational and historical factors that together shape the contours of contemporary Russian theory and practice of coercion. Russian informational war is both technological and cognitive and includes radio-electronic, cyber, and psychological operations, combined to influence the decision-making process of an adversary. As for Russia, so, too for China, now rising into the rank of strategic nuclear superpowers. Although Beijing is dubious about the degree of transparency required in past U.S. and Russian arms control agreements, China’s strategic thinking on deterrence, escalation, and military operations related to nuclear weapons can be shared in multilateral forums among subject matter experts and policy makers.
Conclusion
The United States and Russia are in suspended animation with respect to formerly agreed New START limitations on deployed and non-deployed strategic nuclear weapons and launchers. Notwithstanding the uncertainty in future political relations as between Washington and Moscow, the need for a post-New START forum for further arms control negotiations is urgent. Otherwise domestic forces in favour of force building and deterrent overcompensation will drive defence budgets even higher and mutual understanding into a cul-de-sac of worst-case analysis. Controlled nuclear modernisation is a security requirement and a reasonable aspiration for U.S. and Russian policy makers: uncontrolled nuclear potlatch is a dead end.
Disclaimer: Views expressed are of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Statecraft Institute.