Loren Thompson , CONTRIBUTOR
President-elect Trump has not made up his mind how to deal with the threat of nuclear war, but give him credit for at least acknowledging the problem. Most politicians choose to ignore the 800-megaton gorilla in the room, even though it's the one manmade threat that could wipe out American democracy before inauguration day.
Trump began his candidacy speaking out about the need to modernize the nation's aging nuclear arsenal, a topic on which he was 100% correct. He later suggested that allies like Japan and South Korea might need to develop their own nuclear arsenals, which was unsettling but a logical conclusion if the U.S. ceased extending a nuclear "umbrella" over allies. (Why would the U.S. be willing to risk its own destruction to protect some other country?)
More recently, Trump said the U.S. should "expand" its nuclear capabilities, and then on January 15 he proposed perhaps trading away economic sanctions against Russia in return for reductions in Moscow's own nuclear arsenal.
President-elect Trump has been talking about America's nuclear capabilities since his candidacy began. Nothing he has said so far sounds as outlandish as what President Obama said during his early months in office. (U.S. Department of Energy/Wikimedia)
President-elect Trump has been talking about America's nuclear capabilities since his candidacy began. Nothing he has said so far sounds as outlandish as what President Obama said during his early months in office. (U.S. Department of Energy/Wikimedia)
Clearly, the president-elect hasn't settled on how he wants to contain the greatest threat to U.S. security. But he would have to get a good deal more outlandish to match the position President Obama espoused during the early months of his first term. Obama actually advocated total nuclear disarmament, which would have been a huge windfall for any foreign dictator capable of hiding a few weapons while everyone else went to zero. Obama's position also would have deprived NATO of its most potent deterrent against conventional attack.
So let's not get too worked up about a few Trump sound-bites concerning nuclear weapons. So far, he hasn't said anything as crazy as the newly elected President Obama did. But let's also hope President Trump takes an early brief on why the U.S. has the kind of nuclear arsenal it does, because nuclear arms reductions aren't like getting illegal guns off the street in Manhattan -- if you do it the wrong way, you can make yourself much less safe.
A coherent nuclear strategy must acknowledge two fundamental facts: (1) Russia has enough nuclear weapons to wipe out our country, and (2) we have no real defense against that danger other than retaliation. The threat of retaliation is what we call "deterrence" -- Russia restrains itself from attacking because it knows that would be an act of suicide. No kidding, if ordered to do so America's military could destroy pretty much everything of value in Russia by sundown today.
Obviously, avoiding such a fate is the top priority of leaders in both countries. However, what matters in this kind of "mutual hostage" relationship is not how many weapons a country has before it suffers a surprise attack, but how many remain after. It's the weapons that can survive and retaliate that deter a surprise attack in the first place.
Which is why leaders have to be really careful about how they cut their arsenals. If the U.S. were to trade away its land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles as former defense secretary William Perry recently suggested, and then the Russians figured out how to track our missile-launching submarines at sea, it would only take two dozen Russian warheads to disarm America in a surprise attack. The Russians have over a thousand warheads capable of doing the job.
Any such operation would be extremely risky, but with only 14 ballistic-missile submarines and a handful of bomber bases in the strategic force, it could be a tempting move in a crisis. Having hundreds of ICBMs in hardened silos that would each require multiple warheads to take out thus is crucial to deterring nuclear Armageddon in an imaginary scenario where the oceans become transparent and Moscow can target our subs.
Nobody seriously expects the Russians will be able to target our undersea deterrent in the foreseeable future. In fact, the next-generation Columbia class of ballistic-missile subs will probably be the most secure part of our nuclear force through the end of the century. But as Trump himself has learned in the business world, it doesn't make sense to put all your eggs in one basket. You need to have options if your enemy scores a major breakthrough in the targeting department.
The bottom line here is that America needs a diverse array of nuclear forces to assure the Russians are deterred from launching a surprise attack, because if they figure out how to disarm us in a first strike, heaven knows we've given them a good reason for doing so.
So let's not confuse cutting weapons stockpiles with becoming safer. What makes us safe from nuclear attack is the certainty our enemies have that any act of aggression would be suicidal. We need all three legs of the nuclear triad -- missiles on land, missiles at sea, and long-range bombers -- to make sure Moscow has no illusions. Modernizing this force over the next several decades will require about 1% of the federal budget. If Washington tries to save money by skipping a few steps on nuclear modernization, we could lose everything.
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