Sure A Not

A recent US Congress report urges a strategic defensive posture review of simultaneous near-peer conventional and nuclear threats.  

This month, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the US released a report urging the country to be prepared for a two-front conflict against China and Russia.

The report says that US defense strategy and strategic posture must change to properly defend its vital interests and improve strategic stability with the two nuclear-armed adversaries while advocating that critical decisions should be made now to address nuclear threats expected to arise during the 2027-2035 timeframe.

It also assessed that the US needs to address the looming nuclear threat with a comprehensive strategy and force structure adjustments. Although it says the fundamentals of US deterrence strategy remain sound, size and composition adjustments are needed to its nuclear capabilities.

The report also emphasizes the importance of non-nuclear capabilities for the US strategic posture, including strengthened infrastructure and risk reduction efforts. It notes allies and partners are crucial to the US approach in the new emerging threat environment.

The report recommends that the US Congress fund the expansion of the US nuclear weapons defense industrial base and the Department of Energy (DOE)/National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) nuclear security enterprise. It also suggests that Congress should ensure funding stability for the defense industry to respond to innovative Department of Defense (DOD) contracting approaches.

The report’s recommendations include deploying a stronger space architecture with offensive and defensive elements, prioritizing funding for long-range precision strike programs, developing homeland missile defense systems and transferring missile defense responsibility to the Military Departments by October 2024.

The report says that the US should maintain and strengthen its network of alliances and partnerships to deter aggression, ensure regional security and boost economic prosperity through access to international markets.

It warns that withdrawing from these relationships would benefit adversaries, increase the risk of aggression and reduce the US and its allies’ security and economic prosperity.

It also recommends exploring nuclear arms control opportunities and researching potential verification technologies to support future negotiations in the US national interest that seek to limit all nuclear weapon types.

The foundation of US national defense, including the defense of allies and support of military operations, is based on the concept of nuclear deterrence that has been in place since 1945.

In a January 2023 article for the US Naval Institute, Daniel Post outlines the value and limits of nuclear deterrence. Post says that the unparalleled destructiveness of nuclear weapons underpins their deterrent value, making them desirable to acquire alongside conventional military capabilities.

Given that, he says the US nuclear strategy must aim at manipulating the rational calculations of adversaries by understanding how its capabilities are perceived by the other.

Post also says nuclear weapons are useless to coerce other states but are effective when held in reserve as a defensive capability, denying benefits and imposing costs on aggressors once deterrence has failed, noting that they deter nuclear and other major strategic attacks on the US and its allies and major state-on-state wars between nuclear powers.

Along with nuclear deterrence, conventional deterrence is more applicable to a broader range of circumstances, has greater flexibility than nuclear weapons and is not subject to the political constraints of the former.

Robert Haffa Jr argues in a 2018 article for Strategic Studies Quarterly that the US should reinforce the logic of conventional deterrence as a central concept of its defense policy. However, Haffa points out that the main issue with conventional deterrence is its tendency to fail. Given that, he says Cold War-era conventional deterrence strategies are inadequate for today’s great power competition.

According to Haffa, a modern approach to deterring US adversaries should focus on non-nuclear threats, be intense and overwhelming in threat, focus on US and allied strengths and adversary weaknesses, and be able to punish, deny and utilize advanced technologies and weapons systems across the globe.

China and Russia have multiple approaches to negate US nuclear and conventional deterrence, running a spectrum between threatening to use nuclear weapons and unconventional means.  

In a September 2022 article for the Heritage Foundation, Patty-Jane Geller says that China’s growing nuclear forces could potentially increase the risk of unintentional escalation.

Geller says that if China perceives a favorable nuclear balance of power over the US, it may become more tempted to use nuclear weapons in a conflict. She also says that if the US lacks tactical nuclear capabilities, China may perceive a US response to limited nuclear use in the Indo-Pacific as unreliable.

She notes China’s nuclear arsenal expansion, including the acquisition of delivery methods that can threaten the US homeland, could weaken US extended deterrence commitments, making the US less willing to defend its allies. This situation, coupled with the risk of unintentional escalation due to miscalculations or mistakes, increases the potential for a Chinese nuclear strike, Geller argues.

In terms of China’s challenging of US conventional deterrence, Andrew Erickson writes in the 2023 book “Modernizing Deterrence: How China Coerces, Compels, and Deters that the conventional missile component of the People’s Liberation Army-Rocket Force (PLA-RF) is increasingly important in China’s deterrence and warfighting, supporting the goal of achieving information dominance, command of the air and control of the sea to thwart a US and allied intervention in Taiwan.

Erickson says that PLA-RF doctrine anticipates and seeks to respond effectively to strategic, operational and technical trends. He notes that such trends may include the ability for rapid global precision attacks, placing more stress on mobility, rapid reaction, force survival and protection, and developing penetration aids.

In the case of Russia, Lydia Wachs notes in a November 2022 article for Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik that with Russia’s dwindling arsenal of conventional precision weapons and NATO’s strategic adaptation, Russia’s strategy is likely to change, with an increase in reliance on tactical nuclear weapons. Wachs notes that Russia’s perceived conventional inferiority compared to US precision strike capabilities has driven Moscow’s increased reliance on tactical nuclear weapons.

She says that the increased role of nuclear weapons in Russia’s deterrence strategy and strengthened posture in areas bordering NATO could weaken European security and stability. Wachs says this could exacerbate Moscow’s threat perception and influence escalation dynamics, impacting the stability of potential crises between NATO and Russia.

She adds that if Russia’s reliance on non-strategic nuclear weapons increases, Moscow’s appetite for arms control on short- and medium-range missiles will likely erode further.

In terms of conventional deterrence, Tim Sweijs and others write in a January 2022 report for the Hague Institute of Strategic Studies (HCSS) that Russia poses a hybrid threat to NATO and Europe through using proxies, covert activities, cyber capabilities, political subversion and economic influence.

In conjunction with that, Ruben Tavenier notes in a February 2018 article for the JASON Institute for Peace and Security Studies that Russia uses a combination of non-military (covert) and military (overt) deterrence to destabilize adversaries, limit potential threats and guarantee victory in a potential conflict.

Tavenier mentions that Russia accomplishes those ends by deterring, coercing or containing an adversary by destabilizing it covertly and reducing its military, political and economic capabilities.

Given the near-peer challenges facing the US deterrent posture, Doreen Horschig and Nicholas Adamopoulos write in an article this month for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that the US should consider a Conventional-Nuclear Integration (CNI) strategy that emphasizes greater coherence between conventional and nuclear forces to manage escalation in regional conflicts, develop integrated options to strengthen deterrence and deny adversaries any advantages gained by nuclear use in a regional conflict.

Horschig and Adamopoulos believe that CNI can improve the resiliency of conventional forces in nuclear war by dispersing operational bases, improving operational capability in potentially contaminated environments, and hardening of command, control and communications (C3) systems.

This way, they say, adversaries will be deterred from limited nuclear escalation, thus ensuring that US and allied forces can still achieve their warfighting objectives.

Such a strategy, Horschig and Adamopoulos say, can give decision-makers more flexibility and reduce the prospects for a limited nuclear war. However, they also point out that CNI blurs the lines between conventional and nuclear forces, thereby increasing the risk of nuclear escalation.

Continue Reading