by Ivan Oelrich

Today is the sixty-fourth anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, which was one of those rare events that divides human history into a before and an after.  That day was the beginning of the nuclear age.  There is nothing special about sixty-four, not like a fiftieth or a centenary.  But, years from now, the sixty-fourth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing may be seen as special:  there is a chance that people looking back on today’s anniversary will see this as the beginning of the end of the nuclear age.

The Cold War came to a close two decades ago but only now are national leaders seriously considering a world free of nuclear weapons.  Even those who see a global ban as a long-term goal can see that making serious progress in the direction of that goal will enhance the security of the nation and the world.

The number of nuclear weapons in the world has fallen dramatically from their frightening Cold War peaks.  This decline is not due primarily to arms control treaties or any sudden rationality of national leaders.  The numbers have gone down mostly because the missions for nuclear weapons —everything from nuclear torpedoes to nuclear land mines—have been taken over by militarily superior alternatives: advanced, guided, accurate conventional weapons.  Nuclear weapons have gone away primarily because they are becoming technologically obsolete.

Obviously, the end of the Cold War was important too.  The Cold War was a stand-off between two implacable ideologies, each of which felt it had a historic mandate to guide the future of the world.  Nuclear weapons, weapons of global destruction, might have seemed appropriate to an ideological struggle of global dimension.  But today, the stakes in play are smaller.  If ever there were a global political justification for nuclear weapons, it no longer applies.  Nuclear weapons are becoming politically obsolete.

Nuclear advocates, unwilling to admit that they are planning for the use of nuclear weapons, always talk in terms of deterrence, a term that has become so vague, misused, and overused that it barely means anything anymore.  Those wanting a robust nuclear force, who want to think it is useful, even crucial, emphasize that deterring some action by threatening retaliation requires both the ability to retaliate and the willingness to do so.  They make much of the need to constantly keep the perception of U.S. capability and willingness very high to deter any possible enemy.

There are three problems (at least three) with this use of the latent power of nuclear weapons.  First, history shows it doesn’t work.  Whether the U.S. in Vietnam or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan or in a score of other cases, having nuclear weapons does not automatically deter wars between nuclear and non-nuclear adversaries or win them, if they are not deterred.  Second, nuclear weapons are so wildly destructive that the United States—and the other established nuclear powers—have destructive power at hand far in excess of any imaginable need.  There is no reason to worry about the details of our nuclear capability.  Finally, some nuclear advocates argue that we need to have smaller nuclear weapons to make our willingness to use them more plausible, so they will deter more effectively.  This is the sort of more-is-less upside-down logic that only nuclear theorists could hope to get away with.  But all the tweaking and fine-tuning of the nuclear arsenal will not change the plausibility of their use compared to one outstanding, and hopeful, fact:  nuclear weapons have not been used in war for sixty-four years.  If they were not used in Korea, or Vietnam, or Afghanistan, or the Falklands, or Iraq, their use is going to be even less plausible in similar conflicts in the future.  The logic is inescapable but nuclear advocates will not face it:  the only thing that can make the use of nuclear weapons significantly more plausible (and, thus, they argue, a better deterrent) is to occasionally use them.  If we want to frighten non-nuclear nations with our nuclear weapons, we have to bomb one of them every decade or so.  Mercifully, after sixty-four years, no nuclear power has done this.  Moreover, every year that passes without nuclear use further erodes the plausibility of future nuclear use for anything other than national survival.  The strategic leverage provided by nuclear weapons continues to erode.  Nuclear weapons are becoming strategically obsolete.

Finally, the moral question of nuclear weapons is often overlooked.  They have been with us so long, we have stopped asking the hard questions.  Nuclear weapons analysts, both pro and con, avoid the squishy problems of moral debate if they want to be taken seriously.  Yet, nuclear weapons force many of the moral concerns about war into stark relief.  The customary laws of war are that violent action should be proportionate to the threat and should, to the extent possible, distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.  Thus, what is moral depends in part on technology.  If no alternatives exist, then an indiscriminant weapon might be justified.  But today, alternatives do exist.  Nuclear weapons are becoming morally obsolete.

Today’s call for a world free of nuclear weapons is not a call for sacrifice.  It is not a call to accept greater risk for our country to improve the security of the rest of the world.  It is not a call to take a moral stand, rejecting something that is wrong, but admittedly useful.  The call for a nuclear free world is an acknowledgement that the curtain is starting to close on the nuclear age.  Battleships, the very epitome of great nation power, ruled the oceans for about the same length of time the Nuclear Age has lasted.  They arose, they had their day, and then a combination of changes in technology and global politics displaced those awesome, powerful giants and they were retired.  Nuclear advocates are fighting an aggressive and skillful rear-guard action, fueled by nostalgia for the certainties of the past and a lack of imagination about the future just as romantics wanted to keep battleships alive long after aircraft carriers, submarines, radar, and cruise missiles had made them obsolete.  Nuclear weapons are in the middle of this process of obsolescence.  It is better to speed the process along and reduce the risk nuclear weapons pose to world civilization, to explicitly reject them and plan for their demise than to continue to bumble through the danger we daily face but have become inured to.  For the first time since Hiroshima, the world seems ready to listen.  It may be, a generation from now, that sixty-four will be seen as a special anniversary.

by Alicia Godsberg

Yesterday’s Washington Post had another article[1] in the ongoing saga of W76 warhead refurbishment Life Extension Program (LEP) and Fogbank – a material that, according to open sources, is an intermediary material between the primary and secondary of a nuclear weapon that is “crucial” to the weapon reaching its designed yield.[2]  The problem for the W76 LEP: the original Fogbank manufacturing facility was closed years ago, at least partly because the material is extremely hazardous.  In addition, due to a lack of record keeping from the original manufacturing process (and the retirement of many knowledgeable scientists involved in that process), the labs found themselves not knowing how to re-manufacture Fogbank or a suitable replacement material for the W76 in a timely manner. The labs tried a three-prong approach to fixing this problem: building a new Fogbank production facility; manufacturing limited quantities at an interim location; and producing a suitable alternative made from less hazardous materials that would not need to undergo nuclear testing.[3]  What we have now is a new $50 million dollar facility at Y-12 to produce Fogbank in either some new form or its older, more hazardous form.[4] 

 That is the brief background – here is the thought of the day, courtesy of many conversations with Ivan Oelrich: there is no longer any justification for retaining complex, extremely high-yield two-stage thermonuclear nuclear weapons in a post-Cold War world.  Our nuclear deterrent would be sufficient with more simple-to-make HEU weapons, even gun-type weapons, the design of which was so scientifically fool-proof that it didn’t need testing before it was dropped on Hiroshima 64 years ago almost to the day.   (more…)

The French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle with air wing on deck.

By Hans M. Kristensen

France no longer deploys nuclear weapons on its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle under normal circumstances but stores the weapons on land, according to French officials.

President Nicolas Sarkozy declared in March 2008 that France “could and should be more transparent with respect to its nuclear arsenal than anyone ever has been.” But while the other nuclear powers declared long ago that their naval weapons were offloaded or scrapped after the Cold War ended, a similar announcement has – to my knowledge – been lacking from France.

The French acknowledgment marks the end of peacetime deployment of short-range nuclear weapons at sea.

It is not clear when the French offload occurred; it may have been instigated years ago. But it completes a worldwide withdrawal of short-range nuclear weapons from the world’s oceans that 20 years ago included more than 6,500 British, French, Russian, and U.S. cruise missiles, anti-submarine rockets, anti-aircraft missiles, depth bombs, torpedoes and bombs.

Nuclear Charles de Gaulle

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle carries a squadron of Super Étendard bombers equipped with the ASMP nuclear cruise missile. From 2010 these aircraft will be replaced with the Rafale MK3 (navy version) equipped with a new nuclear cruise missile known as the ASMP-A. The weapon will enter service with air force’s Mirage 2000Ns this fall and next year with the Rafale F3.

ASMP on Super Étendard

A Super Étendard prepares to take off from an aircraft carrier with an ASMP nuclear cruise missile shape under its right wing.

France previously operated two aircraft carriers, the Clemenceau and Foch, with nuclear capability. Initially armed with nuclear bombs, the ships were upgraded to the ASMP in the late 1980s, but decommissioned in 1997 and 2000, respectively. Plans to replace them with two nuclear-powered carriers did not materialize; only the Charles de Gaulle has been built.

ASMP-A on Rafale F3

A Rafale F3 aircraft with an ASMP-A nuclear cruise missile shape installed on the center pylon.

With a range of only 300 km (500 km for the ASMP-A), the cruise missile strictly speaking falls into the category of U.S. and Russian non-strategic weapons, but France calls its cruise missile strategic or pre-strategic. Technically, the range of the aircraft delivering the cruise missile extends the range to 2,000-2,500 km, similar to the U.S. nuclear Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile and the Russian SS-N-21. But that assumes the aircraft will be able to penetrate the air defenses of the target country. Regardless, potential adversaries probably care less about the category terminology than the fact that the weapon is nuclear.

During normal circumstances the cruise missiles are stored on land, perhaps in a weapons storage area close to the carrier’s homeport in Toulon. The weapons storage spaces onboard the Charles de Gaulle are maintained and the crew periodically trained and certified to store and handle the missiles so they can quickly be brought onboard if a decision is made to deploy the them.

As for the Charles de Gaulle’s nuclear strike mission, it can hardly be said to be essential; During the extended time periods the carrier is in overhaul (18 months), France does not have a sea-based nuclear cruise missile capability.

Additional Information: French Nuclear Forces 2008

Retirement of the W62 warhead will be completed in 2009.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The U.S. State Department has confirmed the estimate made by FAS on this blog in February that the United States had already reached the limit of 2,200 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads set by the 2002 Moscow Treaty. The confirmation occurred earlier today in a fact sheet published on the State Department’s web site: “As of May 2009, the United States had cut its number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 2,126.”

This is a reduction of 77 warheads from the 2,203 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads deployed on February 5, 2009, and probably reflects the ongoing retirement of the W62 warhead from the Minuteman III ICBM force, scheduled for completion later this year.

The total U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile includes approximately 5,200 warheads.

by Alicia Godsberg

There is cause for cautious optimism after Presidents Obama and Medvedev signed their START follow-on Joint Understanding in Moscow last Monday – the goal of completing a legally binding bilateral nuclear disarmament agreement with verification measures is preferable to letting START expire without an agreement or without one that keeps some sort of verification protocol.  The Joint Understanding leaves some familiar questions open, such as the lack of definition of a “strategic offensive weapon” and what to do about the thousands of nuclear warheads in reserve or awaiting dismantlement.  But so far few analysts on either side of the nuclear debate have been talking about the big picture, what for the vast majority of the world (and therefore our own national security) is really at stake here – the viability of the nonproliferation regime itself.

Why will the follow-on treaty to START have such a great impact on the entire nonproliferation regime?  Simply, the rest of the world is looking for the possessors of 95% of the global nuclear weapon stockpiles to show greater effort in working toward their nuclear disarmament obligation under the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).  The NPT is both a nonproliferation and disarmament treaty, and at the NPT Review Conferences (RC’s) and Preparatory Committees (PrepCom’s) the Non-Nuclear Weapons States Parties (NNWS) continue to voice their growing concern and anger over what they perceive to be lack of real progress on nuclear disarmament.  At the PrepCom this past May those voices – including many of our closest allies – spoke loudly, stating that continued failure by the NWS to work in good faith toward their nuclear disarmament obligation could eventually break up the nonproliferation regime, spelling the end of the other part of the Treaty’s bargain: the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.

Just to put things in perspective, NNWS are every country in the world except the five NWS (US, Russia, UK, France, and China) and the three countries that have never signed the NPT (Israel, India, and Pakistan – with a question now about the obligations of North Korea and without including Taiwan, which is not recognized by the United Nations).  While the NPT has an elaborate mechanism to verify the compliance of NNWS with their nonproliferation obligations under the Treaty (i.e. the IAEA and its Safeguards Agreements), there are no institutionalized means to monitor or enforce compliance with the disarmament obligation of NWS under Article VI of the Treaty.  And while some NWS are now proposing further restrictions on NNWS nuclear energy programs through preventing the spread of sensitive fuel-cycle technology, NNWS are increasingly voicing their frustration over nuclear trade restrictions while greater progress on nuclear disarmament remains in some distant future.  Further fueling this distrust of the NWS and of new technology transfer restrictions was the Bush administration’s ill-advised US-India nuclear cooperation deal, seen by many NNWS as “rewarding” India with an exception to nuclear trade laws and export controls while India continues to operate its nuclear programs largely outside the NPT’s nonproliferation regime and its oversight and restrictions.

This blog is not meant to weigh in on the controversy surrounding the inalienable right of NNWS to nuclear technology under Article IV of the NPT, but rather to state the fact that a series of what are perceived as broken promises by NWS to NNWS has led the regime to approach what many have seen as a breaking point.  Some of those promises include the ratification of the CTBT, strengthening of the ABM Treaty, and the establishment of a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in the Middle East.  These promises have special significance, as they were part of political commitments made to get the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995, thereby removing any small pressure NNWS might have been able to place on NWS to meet their disarmament obligation by threatening not to renew the Treaty at future RC’s.

The US has a special role to play in this drama for two reasons.  First, the US is the second largest possessor of nuclear weapons in the world and as such needs to be at the forefront of nuclear disarmament for that goal to be taken seriously and eventually come to fruition.  Second, President Obama has publicly reversed some positions of President George W. Bush on nuclear disarmament and the world is waiting to see if his vision will be translated into action by the US.  For example, at the 2005 NPT RC the Bush administration stated it would not consider as binding any of the commitments made by prior US administrations at previous RC’s, such as the commitment to the “unequivocal undertaking” to eliminate nuclear weapons and the commitment to work toward ratifying the CTBT.  Contrast that with Obama’s policy speeches, especially the one in Prague on April 5, 20009 in which he placed a high priority on US verification of the CTBT and on his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, and you can begin to understand the feeling of hope surrounded by a continued atmosphere of mistrust that pervaded the United Nations in May.

A recent New York Times op-ed[i] pointed out that there is no guarantee the US Senate is going to go along with President Obama’s nuclear policy vision, and he may in fact encounter difficulty ratifying the CTBT and gaining support for the reductions outlined in last week’s Joint Statement.  In a June 30 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal,[ii] Senator Kyl and Richard Perle voiced this side of the debate, stating:

There is a fashionable notion that if only we and the Russians reduced our nuclear forces, other nations would reduce their existing arsenals or abandon plans to acquire nuclear weapons altogether… this is dangerous, wishful thinking.  If we were to approach zero nuclear weapons today, others would almost certainly try even harder to catapult to superpower status by acquiring a bomb or two.  A robust American nuclear force is an essential discouragement to nuclear proliferators; a weak or uncertain force just the opposite.

This fear mongering, unsupported by the facts, is the type of rhetoric that will confuse the debate once any START or CTBT-related issues hit the Senate floor.  In a world where reductions would still leave actively deployed nuclear warheads in the thousands – with thousands more on reserve – “superpower status” will not be achieved by acquiring “a bomb or two.”  Think about North Korea – are they a “superpower” now that they have exploded two nuclear devices and we know they are continuing to work on their nuclear weapon program?  Hardly.  Instead, they are international outcasts, condemned even by China for their latest atomic experiment, and have become weaker still in their attempt to achieve international status.  And if the US, the country with the most powerful and advanced conventional forces, needs a “robust” nuclear force to protect its national security and fulfill security commitments, then it seems that any country with a weaker conventional force (which is everyone else) should seek nuclear weapons.  So, I would argue exactly the opposite Senator Kyl and Mr. Perle, and say that a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in US security actually lessens the case for other nations to develop their own nuclear weapons, which are more costly both economically and politically than conventional forces.

Whether the US can restore the faith of the rest of the world in our leadership on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament by meeting previous political commitments and working toward fulfilling Treaty obligations remains to be seen.  Rose Gottemoeller’s remarks to the 2009 NPT PrepCom at the UN in May were well received by the global community, but NNWS also made clear that words need to be followed by concrete actions.  The US needs the cooperation of the global community to continue the success of the nonproliferation regime, which has been largely successful over the past 39 years minus the few notable failures.  To do this, the US must understand that the follow-on treaty to START will directly impact the perception the rest of our global community has about the seriousness of our commitment to the NPT.  That is because the NPT is both a disarmament and nonproliferation treaty; if the US recognizes and acts on this truth, it will be able to achieve the urgent goal of regaining its leadership position on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.

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[i] Taubman, Philip. “Obama’s Big Missile Test.” Editorial. New York Times 8 July 2009.

[ii] Jon Kyl and Richard Perle. “Our Decaying Nuclear Deterrent.” Editorial. Wall Street Journal 30 June 2009.

A recently released report, U.S. Nuclear Deterrence in the 21^st Century:  Getting It Right, by the ad hoc New Deterrent Working Group with a forward by James Woolsey, is an interesting document.  I believe this report is significant because it might typify the arguments that will be used against arms control treaties in the upcoming Senate debates.

Much of what is written in support of existing nuclear policies is such a logical muddle that one hardly knows where to start in a critique.  As a statement of the pro-nuclear position, this paper is clearer than most so worth addressing.  It makes the errors that others do when arguing for nuclear weapons, specifically, making statements about the “requirements” for nuclear weapons that imply missions left over from the Cold War, but the report is particularly blunt in its demands and might serve as a good example of the pro-nuclear arguments.  The report is almost seventy pages long, so I can’t touch on every point in a blog and I think I will leave the arguments about nuclear testing for a separate blog to follow.

The report starts out with one fundamental mistake contained in almost every discussion on nuclear weapons:  It conflates nuclear weapons with deterrence.  Nuclear weapons are so thoroughly equated with deterrence—they are often simply called “the deterrent” —that we seldom stop to think about the details of how this deterrent is supposed to work.  What is being deterred, whom, how, for what purpose?  If we do not know what nuclear weapons are for, what their missions are, what their targets are, then it is impossible to pin down what their performance characteristics ought to be.

Uncertainty, Reliability, and Safety

The report argues that we need nuclear weapons in part because the world and the future are very uncertain.  The report admits no one knows the answers to any of the questions above so the United States simply has to make certain that it has sufficient numbers of nuclear weapons with a variety of capabilities and hope for the best.  The problem with this approach is that planning for uncertainty is never finished;  we never reach an endpoint.  For example, the heading on p. 25, “U.S. nuclear weapons are deteriorating and do not include all possible safety and reliability options” is not only true but always will be true.  The “deteriorating” fear has been refuted:  parts in weapons age, and these parts are being replaced when needed so the weapons remain within design specifications.  This is not cheap or simple but neither is it impossible and can continue for decades.  But admittedly, nuclear weapons do not have “all possible safety and reliability options.”  There are, no doubt, “options” no one has even thought of yet.  So how much reliability and safety is enough?  When can we stop?

The answer depends on the missions for nuclear weapons.  If nuclear weapons had only the mission of retaliating against nuclear attack, to inflict sufficient pain to make such an attack seem pointless in the first place, then one could plausibly argue that 90% reliability is adequate.  If the United States needs to destroy, say, ten targets to inflict sufficient pain to deter, then which ten is not absolutely critical and it could fire at eleven targets and accept that one might escape.  Even if the United States wanted to use nuclear weapons to attack and destroy stocks of chemical and biological weapons, it could fire a nuclear weapon at the target and, if one in ten does not go off, it could fire off another bomb an hour later.  It is not as though we will not know whether a nuclear bomb actually went off, that will be pretty obvious.  If, on the other hand, the United States wants to conduct a surprise, disarming first strike against Russian central nuclear forces, destroying its missiles on the ground, then there is a huge difference whether the attack is 90%, 95%, or 99.9% successful.  If the Russians have a thousand warheads, that is the difference between 100, 50, or 1 surviving, obviously significant.  So, to say that nuclear warheads need a certain reliability, specifically a high reliability, is to imply certain missions.  But these are missions that nuclear advocates rarely want to acknowledge explicitly because they know what a hard sell it will be while “reliability” seems like an obvious, inarguable good quality to have.

What about safety?  Certainly we should have nuclear weapons that are as safe as possible and no effort should be spared to make them safer, right?  In fact, the Working Group does not agree.  The safest nuclear weapons are the ones that do not exist, so ultimate safety calls for nuclear abolition, an option explicitly rejected by the Working Group.  If we are going to have actual nuclear weapons, they could be made safer by storing them disassembled.  If we need assembled warheads, they could be made safer by removing them from their missiles.  Warheads on missiles could be made safer by taking the missiles off alert.  All of these options are explicitly rejected by the Working Group.  What the report really means when it says we should have “all possible” safety options is that we should fund the National Labs at high levels forever but not change deployments one iota in the interest of safety, hardly my definition of “all possible.”

How Much Is Enough?

The rest of the report makes claims that are unproven and often unprovable and sets requirements for nuclear weapons that sound as though the Cold War never ended.  I understand that even in a report of seventy pages not every statement can be fully analyzed and supported but, even so, there are a score of amazing claims for nuclear weapons that are supported mostly by lots of quotes.

The report makes the error of discussing the numbers of nuclear weapons in terms of reductions, specifically since the Cold War (p. 11).  All references to reductions imply the Cold War is a benchmark by which current arsenals are measured.  But the world has been turned on its head since then and comparison to Cold War numbers is neither relevant nor enlightening.  (The Navy also has fewer battleships than it did in World War II.  The point is?)

The report states (p. 11), “In a number of cases, a robust American nuclear arsenal has proven to be effective not only in deterring attacks on the United States and its allies from adversaries using weapons of mass destruction.”  This may be true but it is very hard to know.  Failures of deterrence are obvious but, if some action does not happen, then why did it not happen?  Was the action every really considered?  Was it considered but rejected for some other reason?  Or was it deterred?  Arguments about the effectiveness of deterrence are inevitably going to be speculative and based on absence of evidence.  As Donald Rumsfeld pointed out while Secretary of Defense, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  There is no doubt that deterrence is real in many cases, it really works in many cases, but it is very difficult to be certain when and where.  We should all (me included) be very cautious when making arguments about deterrence.  I believe that general discussions of deterrence almost always go off the rails.  When we talk about deterrence, we should at least try to use concrete examples for discussion.  In the case of nuclear weapons, going to some example, any example, almost always demonstrates that the arguments in favor of nuclear weapons are simply incredible.

The report states (p. 12), “In short, the available evidence suggests that an American nuclear deterrent that is either qualitatively or quantitatively insufficient will have the effect of encouraging the very proliferation of nuclear forces we seek to prevent.”  This might be tautologically true if the definition of “insufficient” is chosen to make it true.  But there is no “available evidence” for the simple reason that the “American nuclear deterrent” (note again how nuclear weapons are thoughtlessly referred to as the “deterrent”) has never been anywhere near “insufficient” since 1945.  So exactly when was this experiment conducted?  Later (p. 51) the reports states, “To the contrary, history has clearly shown that unilateral US reductions, far from causing a similar response, actually stimulate nuclear buildups by adversaries.”  What can they be talking about?  Russia, Britain, France, and China went nuclear while the U.S. arsenal was expanding or just plain huge.  The nuclear arsenal of the United States declined from its peak because of the retirement of thousands of battlefield nuclear weapons made obsolete by modern precision conventional alternatives.  Did South Africa, India, Israel, Pakistan, or North Korea really go nuclear because of “unilateral US reductions”?  These confident statements are based on a “history” of some parallel universe.

The report asserts that China has “its own extensive military modernization program.”  China, with a growing economy is naturally increasing its overall budget but its nuclear ambitions continue to appear quite restrained.  Hans Kristensen has written extensively on this.

Hydronuclear Alert

The report asserts that Russia is conducting hydronuclear tests, that is, nuclear weapon tests with very small nuclear yields, tests that the United States would consider in violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban.  This is a common claim from pro-nuclear people, based, apparently on highly classified reports that are repeated here in this unclassified document.  Some of the authors of the report have or had security clearances so any claim to the contrary is met with “if only you knew what I know.”  All I can say is that I have asked people who do know what the authors know and apparently the evidence is unclear, specifically, the United States does not have good enough detection capability to prove that the Russians are not conducting such tests.  If the Russians are conducting such tests, and the pro-nuclear lobby has already let the cat out of the bag, the intelligence community should present testimony in Congress confirming the tests.  As far as I know, they have not done so.  Even so, note that the fuss is about a treaty that the United States has not ratified.  Upon ratification, the United States and Russia (and perhaps China) could agree in parallel to place instruments at each other’s tests sites and resolve this ambiguity.

Nuclear Weapons Ready to Fly.

The report advocates, even assumes, an aggressive nuclear stance, with weapons constantly ready to go.  For example, (p. 15):  “Finally, the continued credibility and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear deterrent precludes de-mating of warheads on operational systems or otherwise reducing the alert rates or alert status of U.S. forces.”  Again, we should apply this general statement to a few concrete examples.  First, by arguing against reducing alert rates they are endorsing current alert rates.  While the report objects to the term “hair trigger alert,’ U.S. nuclear weapons are, in fact, ready to launch on a few minutes’ notice.  At any given moment, many are deployed on submarines off the coast of China and Russia, atop missiles just a few minutes flight time from their targets.   Do they really mean that an enemy will not be deterred if these conditions are relaxed?  We have to imagine a scenario in which the leader of China, Russia, or maybe North Korea want to use nuclear weapons against the United States but, knowing that they will be hit back 40 minutes later are deterred.  Then their head of military intelligence comes in and reports that the American nuclear bombs won’t arrive until eight hours later, or perhaps the next day, or whatever, and as a result the enemy leader says, “Well, in that case, let’s attack.”  Perhaps someone else can think of a case in which this is plausible but I cannot.

Later (p. 59), the report does try to give some further justification for high alerts:  “They [nuclear weapons] must be known to be ready and useable to have deterrent effect. No START follow-on agreement can be deemed in the national security interest if it would require downgrading of that condition and, thereby, potentially leave the United States vulnerable to coercion based on the threat of second or third strikes before we could respond to an attack.”  This actually makes some sense but we have to think about what it really means.  It means keeping a constant counterforce attack capability.  The statement above says that, if Russia (in the context of START, we are talking about Russia) attacks the United States with nuclear weapons, the next act of the United States should be to attack all remaining Russian nuclear weapons so they can’t do any more damage.  That sounds plausible but let’s think this though.  The Russians can safely assume the Americans will be more than a little upset after a nuclear bomb has gone off.  The Russians will know that their vulnerable weapons could be attacked so they would either disperse their weapons to make them invulnerable or they would use them.  It might be that keeping a counterforce capability results in the Russians throwing everything they can throw at the United States in the first wave, actually increasing the damage to the United States in a contest that would otherwise have smaller stakes.  I have written elsewhere how high U.S. alert rates make reductions in nuclear forces more difficult for Russia.  Moreover, the report completely neglects the costs of high alert rates, not just the financial costs but the risks of accidental nuclear launch, either by the United States or Russia, and the danger of Russian mitigating tactics, and the loss of escalation control.  The authors fail to imagine that the United States and Russia might negotiate mutual force postures that include weapons off alert that are mutually invulnerable, creating a much more stable nuclear environment.  The authors seem to believe that a Cold War Lite is the only way the world can be.  They cannot see over the hill into the next valley.

The report makes a series of other remarkable and unsupportable claims, but I want to address those in a separate blog about nuclear testing.

Presidents Obama and Medvedev sign a joint understanding on a START follow-on treaty.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The Joint Understanding for the START Follow-on Treaty signed by President Obama and Medvedev on July 6, 2009, commits the United States and Russia to “reduce their strategic warheads to a range of 1500-1675, and their strategic delivery vehicles to a range of 500-1100.”

Negotiators will still have to hammer out the details and draft a new treaty that the presidents can sign, hopefully by the end of the year, to be implemented in seven years.

The Summit was a good effort to revive U.S.-Russian relations, but seven years is a very long timeline for a START follow-on that doesn’t force either side to change very much. Does it rule out deeper cuts for the rest of the Obama administration?

Perceived and Actual Cuts

Although the actual treaty has yet to be written up, the Joint Understanding indicates that it will be a hybrid between the 1991 START treaty and the 2002 SORT agreement: limits on strategic delivery vehicle and deployed strategic warheads. It adopts the range-limit of the SORT agreement and continues some form of verification regime.

The lower limits of 1,500 strategic warheads and 500 delivery vehicles are meaningless because neither country is prohibited from going lower if it chooses to do so. The only real limit is the upper limit of 1,675 deployed strategic warheads and 1,100 strategic delivery vehicles.

Unfortunately, and this often happens when arms control agreements are covered, the news media has widely misreported what has been agreed to.  Here are some examples:

* Washington Post:  The agreement would “cut the American and Russian nuclear arsenals by as much as a third” by reducing the “the number of deployed nuclear warheads in each country to between 1,500 and 1,675….”
* Associated Press: The agreement would “slash nuclear stockpiles by about a third….”
* Washington Times:  The agreement “would reduce nuclear warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675….”

In fact, the agreement only reduces deployed strategic warheads. It does not affect warheads held in reserve, non-strategic warheads, the size of the total stockpile, nor does it require dismantlement of any nuclear warheads.

The number of warheads in each country is secret and projections fraught with considerable uncertainty, but here is how the proposed START follow-on treaty might affect the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States:

A START follow-on treaty would reduce Russian and U.S. deployed strategic warheads by approximately 40 and 24 percent, respectively, but leave huge arsenals on both sides. (Click table to download larger version)

Compared with the forces deployed as of 2009, the effect of the START follow-on appears to be a reduction of Russian deployed strategic warheads by approximately 40 percent, and a U.S. reduction of roughly 24 percent. The estimated effect on the total stockpile of either country is more modest: 14 percent fewer warheads for Russia and 10 percent for the United States. But that assumes the warheads cut by the START follow-on treaty would be retired rather than placed in the reserve, something the agreement does not require. The treaty itself requires no change in the size of the total stockpiles.

The reduction to 500-1,100 strategic delivery vehicles represents a significant reduction from the START ceiling of 1,600, at least on paper. In reality, however, the upper limit exceeds what either country currently deploys, and the lower level exceeds what Russia is expected to deploy by 2017 anyway. Therefore, a 500-1,100 limit doesn’t force either country to make changes to its nuclear structure but essentially follows current deployment plans.

The United States currently deploys approximately 798 strategic delivery vehicles; Russia approximately 620.  But many of the Russian systems are being retired and not being replaced on a one-for-one basis so the entire force could shrink to less than 400 strategic delivery vehicles by 2016. To put in perspective; that would be less than the United States deploys in its ICBM force alone.

It is clear that claims that the Kremlin got everything while Washington gave away at the store are not accurate.  Because Russia deploys more strategic warheads than the United States it also has to reduce more under the new treaty. And even after implementation, the United States will still have more – and better – strategic delivery vehicles than Russia.

So What?

Just like President Bush set a force level of 1,700-2,200 “operationally deployed strategic warheads” before the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review was completed, President Obama has now set what probably will be the overall force level of the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review.  Not only will that review cut the number of warheads, it will probably also cut the number of delivery vehicles, perhaps a couple of the SSBNs and some of the ICBMs.

Yet some planners will probably argue against such cuts because Russia is compensating for its lower number of strategic delivery vehicles by deploying more warheads on each missile than the United States. In the minds of some, details like that still matter.

One architect of the Bush administration’s nuclear policy recently argued that the START follow-on agreement is a sellout by the Obama administration because it will “control or eliminate many elements of U.S. military power in exchange for strategic force reductions [Russia] will have to make anyway,” make the United States more vulnerable to a nuclear first strike, and make it harder to direct the nuclear force against other potential adversaries. Another warned that it would right-out “compromise” the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

Such arguments are both well known from the Cold War and out of sync with the 21st Century because they represent a cocooned form of strategic thinking that is preoccupied with Cold War scenarios.  It is precisely because Russia is reducing that the United States should also trim its force; anything else will cater to those elements in Russia who want to stop and reverse the reduction.  How could such a future possibly be in the interest of the United States or its allies (and, for that matter, Russia)?

And just why a U.S. arsenal of several thousand nuclear weapons would not be able to deter any other realistic adversary – to the extent anything can – is beyond me.

Internally the START follow-on will no doubt help the United States and Russia at the 2010 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Yet even when the new treaty has been implemented in seven years, the two countries will still possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, each with over 20 times more weapons than the next-largest nuclear power: China.

What’s Next?

Where does the new agreement fit in? It is explicitly described as a follow-on agreement to START, and U.S. and Russian officials have spoken of a step-by-step process that would initially extend START, produce a follow-on treaty, and also address non-strategic weapons and reserve warheads.

Yet the long timeline of the START follow-on agreement – seven years from the date of signing, five years after the SORT deadline – raises the question of whether this is as deep as they want to go in deployed strategic weapons.  Since the limit of 1,100 delivery vehicles liberates either country from having to change their force structure, the agreement could be implemented very quickly – probably in a few months. So why set a timeline of seven years? I hope it does not rule out deeper cuts during even a second Obama administration.

Is the START follow-on the umbrella structure and the other steps – reserve weapons, counting rules, and non-strategic weapons – intended to follow underneath while it is being implemented?

Time will tell, but a couple of clarifying statements from the administration would be helpful.

Background Information: Full Text of Joint Understanding | U.S. Nuclear Forces 2009 | Russian Nuclear Forces 2009

By Hans M. Kristensen

Can they do it? Expectations are high for the July Moscow Summit to produce an agreement to extent the START Treaty and commit to additional nuclear weapons reductions in the future. The following provides quick access to information about nuclear weapons numbers:

Overview of World Nuclear Forces

Global Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945-2006

US and Russian Total Nuclear Arsenals:

– United States

– Russia

– Briefing slides on history of US and Russian nuclear arsenals

US and Russian Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons:

– US Nuclear weapons in Europe

– History of US nuclear weapons in South Korea

– Russian Tactical Nuclear Weapons

Other Nuclear Weapon States (Most Recent Overviews):

– France, China, United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea

PACOM Commander Admiral Keating is “unaware” of the Japanese interest in the nuclear Tomahawk cruise missile reported by the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission.

By Hans M. Kristensen

Admiral Timothy J. Keating, who is Commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said Monday that he is “unaware of specific Japanese interests in the” nuclear-armed Tomahawk Land-Attack Missile.

That’s interesting because the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission recently pointed explicitly to such a Japanese interest in the role that the missile – known as the TLAM/N – provides in extending a U.S. nuclear umbrella over Japan to deter nuclear attacks against it from China and other potential adversaries in the region.

We would expect the commander of Pacific forces to be in close contact with the highest levels of the Japanese government and military.  Shouldn’t he be aware of a specific Japanese interest in specific weapons for the U.S. nuclear umbrella?  So statements to the contrary in the recent Congressional Commission report seem odd and worth investigating.

The Claims

The final report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States of America makes several claims about Japan and the TLAM/N, primarily that:

“extended deterrence [in Asia] relies heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles class attack submarines—the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile/Nuclear (TLAM/N). This capability will be retired in 2013 unless steps are taken to maintain it. U.S. allies in Asia are not integrated in the same way into nuclear planning and have not been asked to make commitments to delivery systems. In our work as a Commission it has become clear to us that some U.S. allies in Asia would be very concerned by TLAM/N retirement.”

Indeed, the report states that the TLAM/N is “primarily relevant to extended deterrence to allies in Asia.”

According to several sources, Japanese government officials provided the Commission with a written list of requirements for the nuclear umbrella.  Neither the list not the wording of the Japanese statements are included in the report, which provides the following statement without mentioning Japan by name: “One particularly important ally has argued to the Commission privately that the credibility of the U.S. extended deterrent depends on its specific capabilities to hold a wide variety of targets at risk, and to deploy forces in a way that is either visible or stealthy, as circumstances may demand.”

The U.S. Nuclear Posture in the Pacific

The United States has approximately 300 nuclear-armed TLAM/N, of which about half are stored in igloos at Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific (SWFPAC) near Bangor, Washington (the other half or so are at Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic (SWFLANT) at Kings Bay, Georgia).
Only about 100 of the TLAM/N warheads are active with limited-life components installed, but none of the missiles are deployed on attack submarines under normal circumstances. Less than a dozen of the 53 U.S. attack submarines are capable of firing the TLAM/N, and although the boats and crews periodically undergo training and inspections to certify them for the mission, they are de-certified again to focus on real-world non-nuclear missions. It would take several months to ready the missiles, recertify the submarines, and deploy the missiles at sea.

The approximately 150 TLAM/N at SWFPAC represent but a fraction of the U.S. nuclear posture in the Pacific, which includes well over 1,000 W76 and W88 warheads for Trident II sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) on eight Ohio-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) patrolling the Pacific Ocean. Five-six of the eight Pacific SSBNs with an estimated 480-570 warheads onboard are deployed at any given time.  Hundreds of additional warheads stored at SWFPAC are available for increasing loading on the SSBNs to an estimated 1,300 warheads if necessary.

USS Henry M. Jackson (SSBN-730) in Hawaii

The nuclear umbrella over Japan is supported by a huge nuclear arsenal in the Pacific region, including SSBNs such as this one that continuously patrol the Pacific and occasionally make their presence known by visiting Hawaii and other Pacific ports.

In addition to this sea-based force, a portion of the 500 warheads on 450 Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) also cover strike options in the PACOM region, as do B-2 and B-52H bombers with nuclear bombs and cruise missiles.  Moreover, F-15Es of the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina have contingency a nuclear strike mission in the Pacific (and elsewhere).

In addition to these nuclear forces, the U.S. Navy is moving 60 percent of its carrier battle groups and nuclear attack submarines into the Pacific.  One of these battle groups is even homeported in Japan.  Naval exercises in the Pacific are now bigger than even during the Cold War.  The Air Force is rotating long-range bomber squadrons to Guam more or less continuously.

Why, given these extensive U.S. forces earmarked for the Pacific region, anyone in Tokyo, Washington, Beijing or Pyongyang would doubt the U.S. capability to project a nuclear umbrella over Japan – or see the TLAM/N as essential – is puzzling.  While not all of these warheads are necessarily intended for the defense of Japan per ce, just how many are is probably irrelevant for the purpose of deterrence and assurance.  Even if the posture were cut by fifty percent, more than three times the entire Chinese nuclear stockpile would still remain, enough to deter any real-world adversary – to the extent anything can.

The Nuclear Lobby: Articulating a Persuasive Nuclear Mission

So why do we suddenly hear all this talk of Japan being deeply worried about the future of a few hundred TLAM/Ns? After all, nearly all U.S. presidents since Kennedy have called for the elimination of nuclear weapons. As a nuclear target in World War II Japan has always called for the elimination of nuclear weapons, perhaps a little disingenuous given its reliance on the U.S. nuclear umbrella and Japanese officials privately saying that elimination probably wouldn’t happen anyway. Yet the growing international momentum across the traditional political trench-lines for moving convincingly down the nuclear ladder toward zero appears to have caught some in the Japanese government by surprise. Now they suddenly have to think about what it means to move toward zero, and change is always hard.

Another reason appears to be that the end of the Cold War and a growing momentum toward a nuclear free world – even supported by even the presidents of the United States and Russia – have left defense hawks and nuclear proponents on the defensive. Chinese modernization, rogue states, and terrorism haven’t quite been able to sustain the nuclear vigor after the demise of the Soviet threat. In that void, obscure and confidential statements from Japanese and other allied officials about extended deterrence have suddenly become essential tools in an attempt to articulate a persuasive – even positive – enduring role for nuclear weapons.  The essence of the message is: nuclear weapons prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons and without them more will come.

It’s tempting to see a collusion.  In December 2006, the Defense Science Board (DSB) task force on nuclear capabilities warned that  “entrenched views” of arms control advocates had robbed the United States of its “national consensus” on the role of nuclear weapons. The White House and senior leaders had to “engage more directly to articulate the persuasive case” for how modern nuclear weapons serve U.S. national security policy.

After clumsy attempts to get Congressional approval for Complex 2030 and the Reliable Replacement Program backfired and instead caused Congress to ask for a review of nuclear policy, a four-page joint DOD-DOE-State Department statement in July 2007 attempted to articulate one but fell short. And although the loss of control of six nuclear warheads at Minot Air Force Base the following month initially put the nuclear enterprise in doubt, the incident has since become an important vehicle for arguing the case urged by the DSB. During the past 12 months, a series of reports by government agencies and defense institutes have emerged that echo the same basic themes of an enduring role for nuclear weapons, need for modernizations, and continued nuclear threats.  The extended deterrence mission underpins these themes:

* September 2008: Schlesinger Task Force Phase I report on the Air Force’s nuclear mission
* September 2008: joint DOD-DOE report on nuclear weapons in the 21st century
* October 2008: Air Force Task Force report on reinvigorating the Air Force nuclear enterprise
* January 2009: Schlesinger Task Force Phase II report on the DOD nuclear mission
* May 2009: Congressional Commission report on the strategic posture of the United States.

These reports, authored by agencies and individuals that are or have been deeply involved in the nuclear business (and many of which “ran the Cold War”), argue for a reaffirmation – even strengthening – of extended deterrence as a “good” and enduring mission for nuclear weapons to prevent proliferation in the 21st Century. They argue that since the U.S. nuclear umbrella is extended to some 30 countries (one report even says 30-plus countries; I can only count 30) it prevents them from acquiring nuclear weapons themselves. Yet for the overwhelming majority of those countries, the function of the extended deterrent is not about nonproliferation but about the ultimate security guarantee.  The number of those countries that could potentially be expected to develop nuclear weapons if the U.S. nuclear umbrella disappeared is very small, perhaps a couple, and whether they would actually do so depends on a wide spectrum of factors, most of which have nothing to do with nuclear weapons.  Yet the reports paint the role of nuclear weapons as alpha omega.

James Schlesinger

James Schlesinger, who like many other key contributors to recent nuclear studies helped shape Cold War nuclear planning, has been granted a powerful role in articulating post-Cold War policy.

The September 2008 Schlesinger report describes a “daily” contribution of nuclear weapons, a theme that is echoed by many of the other reports and has been used in testimony before Congress: “Though our consistent goal has been to avoid actual weapons use, the nuclear deterrent is ‘used’ every day by assuring friends and allies, dissuading opponents from seeking peer capabilities to the United States, deterring attacks on the United States and its allies from potential adversaries, and providing the potential to defeat adversaries if deterrence fails.”

One has to be very careful about such nuclear dogma because it quickly can balloon the perceived contribution, mission, and requirements beyond reality. Since the end of the Cold War, which country can we actually say has been deterred by nuclear weapons from attacking anyone, which country has been dissuaded by nuclear weapons from pursuing advanced military capabilities, and which allied or friendly country has been assured by nuclear weapons from pursuing nuclear weapons? This list is very small and the evidence dubious and circumstantial even in the best cases.

Yet the combined effect of these studies and the lobbying that accompany them appears to be setting the tone, at least at the outset, for the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review.  Extended deterrence has risen to the top of the agenda and has been assigned to one of only four working groups in the review (International Dimensions), instead of incorporating analysis of that mission into the Policy and Strategy working group like the other missions.

Concluding Remarks

It is impossible to say to what extent Admiral Keating was aware of the public relations battle that is raging on the nuclear extended deterrence front when he gave his answer at the Atlantic Council. I think he was. He certainly looked like he was choosing his words very carefully.

Nuclear advocates and defense hawks appear to be milking the extended deterrence mission for all it’s worth to secure funding for pet projects such as the TLAM/N, a replacement missile, and a nuclear role for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, capabilities that are not needed. Yet the Congressional Commission report concludes that assuring allies that the U.S. extended deterrent remains credible and effective “may require that the United States retain numbers or types of nuclear capabilities that it might not deem necessary if it were concerned only with its own defense.” Indeed, the Commission said, echoing the January 2009 Schlesinger report, the extended deterrence mission has “design implications for the posture” and nuclear weapons “modernization is essential to the non-proliferation benefits derived from the extended deterrent”.

Admiral Timothy J. Keating

The head of PACOM, Admiral Timothy Keating, says he is “unaware of specific Japanese interest in that particular system” (TLAM/N) described recently by the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission.

The issue is not whether there should be an extended deterrent or not but what characteristics it needs to have and for what purpose.  Nuclear cruise missiles and dual-capable fighter aircraft are characteristics of what nuclear extended deterrence looked like the Cold War, but they might not be necessary or even appropriate today. Long-range systems might be sufficient. Whatever Japanese officials have said about the composition and role of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, there is probably more to the story than meets the eye. Even if some Japanese express a unique value in the TLAM/N – the U.S. military certainly does not share that view – what they say might tell us more about what deterrence literature and Cold War history they have read and which U.S. officials they meet with.

To that end I find it curious that the Japanese government apparently has not brought its alleged interest in the TLAM/N to the attention of PACOM even though that command works with Japanese officials on a daily basis to provide the military capabilities that make up the U.S. security guarantee to Japan.  And it is not because PACOM is not aware of their interest in the nuclear umbrella.  In the words of Admiral Keating, responding to a question from Miles Pompers from the Center for Nonproliferation Studies:

“As I move around the [PACOM Area of Responsibility]…sooner or later many of the folks with whom we have discussions will get around to asking ‘is your nuclear deterrent umbrella going to continue to extend over’ fill-in-the-blank country? So our capabilities in this area are not taken for granted all throughout our area of responsibility. Everywhere I go, sooner or later – not just in mil-to-mil – the conversation comes up.

I am unaware of specific Japanese interest in that particular system [TLAM/N] you describe. I am, as I said, aware of Japanese interest in the nuclear umbrella.”

It is important for the quality and credibility of the nuclear extended deterrent debate here in the United States and elsewhere to see what the Japanese officials have said and provided, what status and function the officials have within the Japanese government (the Commission report only identifies four individuals from the Japanese embassy in Washington, D.C.), and exactly what they were asked and by whom. The reason is, as all officials know, that questions asked and answers given are always influenced by such factors. It would serve neither the United States nor its allies if the future U.S. nuclear extended deterrence policy and capabilities were to fall victim to bias and special interests.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun reportedly has issued a statement saying the U.S. has 1,000 nuclear weapons in South Korea. In this regional war of rhetoric it is important to at least get one fact right: The United States does not have nuclear weapons in South Korea. It used to – at some point close to 1,000 – but the last were withdrawn in 1991.

The only nuclear weapons the United States has in the Pacific today are the hundreds of warheads deployed on Trident II D5 sea-launched ballistic missiles on board eight Ohio-class nuclear-powered submarines patrolling in the Pacific Ocean. Some of them may be earmarked for potential use against targets in North Korea. Other weapons for bombers could be moved into the region if necessary, but they’re not today.

The North Korean obsession with the U.S. nuclear “threat” might be seen as confirmation that the nuclear deterrent works and hopefully will deter North Korea from attacking anyone. But the flip side of the coin is to what extent the U.S. nuclear posture in the Pacific – past and present – helps feed the North Korean nuclear rhetoric and perhaps even ambitions.

Additional information: A history of U.S. nuclear weapons deployment to and withdrawal from South Korea.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The Air Force Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) has published an update to its Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat. The document, which I obtained from NASIC, is sobering reading.

The latest update continues the previous user-friendly format and describes a number of important assessments and new developments in ballistic and cruise missiles of many of the world’s major military powers.

The report also helps dispel many web-rumors that have circulated about Chinese, Russian, Indian and Pakistani nuclear forces.

In this blog I’ll focus on the nuclear weapon states, particularly China.

Chinese Nuclear Forces

As the DF-3A retirement continues (there are now only 5-10 launchers left of close to 100 in the 1980s), the liquid-fuel missile is being replaced by a family of solid-fuel DF-21 variants. The NASIC identifies four, including two nuclear versions (Mod 1 and Mod 2), one conventional version, and an anti-ship version that unlike the others is not yet deployed.

Thankfully, the report dispels widespread speculation by web sites, news media, and even Jane’s after images began circulating on the Internet, that a DF-25 had been deployed, some even said with three nuclear warheads.  But it was, as I predicted last year and NASIC now confirms, in fact a DF-21.

DF-21 Road-Mobile Launchers

A column of DF-21s on the road in what could be the Delingha deployment are in Qinghai Province. Several of the vehicles have identical camouflage patterns, raising suspicion that the image has been manipulated. Four DF-21 versions exist, two nuclear, one conventional, and one anti-ship version.                                                                                       Image: Web

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The report also reaffirms that the first of the DF-31s and DF-31As “have been deployed to units within the Second Artillery Corps,” and NASIC estimates that “less than 15” are deployed, up from the “less than 10” estimate in the Pentagon’s March 2009 report (which actually used 2008 data).

The NASIC report states that neither of China’s two types submarine-launched ballistic missiles is operational. This suggests that the multi-year overhaul of the JL-1 equipped Xia SSBN, which was completed last year, was not successful. The successor missile JL-2 for the new Jin-class SSBNs has not reached operational status either. NASIC gives the JL-2 the U.S. designation CSS-NX-14, not a numerical follow-on to the JL-1, which is listed as CSS-NX-3. The “14” could be a typo, but it appears several places in the report. The JL-2 is shown to have roughly the same dimensions as the Russian SS-N-32 SLBM.

NASIC lists single warheads on all of the Chinese missiles, not multiple warheads as speculated by many. “China could develop MIRV payloads for some of its ICBMs,” the report states. Yet it also predicts that, “Future ICBMs probably will include some with multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles.” Whether that prediction – which appears to hint that China has more ICBMs under development – comes true remains to be seen, and the U.S. intelligence community has stated for years that one development that could trigger it is a U.S. ballistic missile defense system.

The report echoes recent statements from other branches of the U.S. intelligence community that the number of warheads on Chinese ICBM capable of reaching the United States could expand to “well over 100 in the next 15 years.” Unfortunately, “well over 100” can mean anything so it is hard to compare this NASIC’s projection with the CIA projection from 2001 of 75-100 warheads “primarily targeted against the United States” by 2015. That projection only included DF-5A and DF-31A capable of targeting all of the United States, with the high number requiring multiple warheads on DF-5A. But the timeline for the anticipated increase has slipped considerably from 2015 to 2024.

U.S. Projections for Chinese ICBM Nuclear Warheads

Projections by the U.S. intelligence community for when China’s long-range nuclear arsenal will double continues to slide. Click image to download larger version.

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Moreover, ICBMs “primarily targeted against the United States” is a smaller group of missiles than those “capable of reaching the United States,” which currently includes about 60 DF-4, DF-5A, DF-31 and DF-31A ICBMs with as many warheads. For this group to grow to “well over 100 warheads” suggests that NASIC anticipates that China will deploy at least 60-70 DF-31, DF-31A and JL-2 missiles by 2024 (the DF-4 will probably have been retired by then). Assuming that includes 36 JL-2s on three Jin-class SSBNs, an additional 20-30 total DF-31s and DF-31As would have to be deployed to reach 120 ICBM warheads. If five SSBNs were deployed, then only 10 additional land-based ICBMs would be required, or 30 if the 20 DF-5As were retired.

The DH-10 land-attack cruise missile is listed as “conventional or nuclear,” the same designation used for the nuclear and conventional Russian AS-4. But unlike the 2009 DOD report on Chinese military forces, which lists 150-350 DH-10s deployed with 40-50 launchers, NASIC lists the operational status as “undetermined.”

Russian Nuclear Forces

NASIC states that “Russia retains about 2,000 warheads on ICBMs,” which is far too many for the land-based ICBM force and so probably includes SLBMs as well. The ICBM force will continue to decrease due to arms control agreements, aging missiles, and resource constraints. Even so, “Russia will probably retain the largest ICBM force outside the United States,” and “most of these missiles are maintained on alert, capable of being launched within minutes of receiving a launch order,” according to NASIC.

The multiple-warhead RS-24 ICBM is, according to NASIC, not a new missile but a modified version of the SS-27 (Topol-M).

The NASIC report formally designates the “multiple” warhead RS-24 ICBM to be a modification of the SS-27 Mod 1. This has some significance because Russia under START is not allowed to increase the warhead loading on missiles declared under the treaty, but in anticipation of the treaty expiring in December 2009 apparently has been working on doing so anyway. The RS-24, which will exist in both silo and road-mobile versions, is not yet deployed but Russian military officials have said this will happen in December.

On the submarine force the modified SS-N-23 known as Sineva is listed as carrying the same number of warheads (4) as the original version, far less than the “up to 10” listed by NASIC in 2006 and by Russian news media. The range is listed as the usual 8,000+ km even though the Russian Navy claimed in October 2008 to have test-flown the missile to 11,547 km. NASIC also continues to list two remaining Typhoon-class SSBNs as capable of carrying the SS-N-20, even though the missile is reported to have been withdrawn from service. I suspect this is because the report uses START-counted missile tubes. A third Typhoon SSBN has been converted as a test platform for the SS-N-32/Bulava-30, and NASIC lists this submarine with 20 tubes for the new missile.

Interestingly, the kh-102 cruise missile, a replacement for the AS-15 long rumored to be under development, is not listed by NASIC.

Indian Nuclear Forces

Even though Indian news media reports and private/corporate institutes have reported for years that Agni I and Agni II were deployed, the NASIC report shows that operational deployment of the road-mobile Agni I SRBM has only recently begun, with “fewer than 25” missile launchers deployed. NASIC seems to back our assessment from last year that the Agni II at that time was not yet fully operational, by listing “fewer than 10” launchers deployed.

Two short-range sea-based ballistic missiles are under development: Dhanush and Sagarika. Neither is operational yet, and NASIC safely estimates that the Sagarika will become operational sometime after 2010.

Despite Indian news media reports of development of a nuclear-capable cruise missile, no mentioning of such a weapon system is made by NASIC.

Pakistani Nuclear Forces

There are fewer than 50 launchers for the road-mobile Ghaznavi and Shaheen I SRBMs listed in the NASIC report, and the 2,000+ km Shaheen II MRBM is not yet operational but may be soon. Pakistan also appears to have two nuclear-capable cruise missiles under development: the ground-launched Babur and the air-launched Ra’ad.

Other Nuclear Weapon States

Although “friendly” nuclear weapon states are not included because they are not a “threat” to the United States, the report’s section on cruise missiles is nonetheless interesting because it – unlike the ballistic missile sections – describes weapon systems of “friendly” nuclear weapon states such as France and Israel. Yet nuclear systems, such as the French ASMP-A, are excluded. Israeli submarine-based cruise missiles, which have been rumored to have nuclear capability (I’m not convinced), are not included either.

Curiously, even after two nuclear tests and the intelligence community stating for more than a decade that North Korea has nuclear weapons, the NASIC report does not list any of North Korea’s weapons as “nuclear” or “conventional or nuclear.” That is, I think, interesting.

Background Information: 2009 NASIC report | Previous NASIC reports

By Hans M. Kristensen

The magazine U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings has an interesting article about China’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines written by Andrew S. Erickson and Michael Chase from the U.S. Naval War College. And I’m not just saying that because they reference several of my publications about China, but because they provide an interesting discussion of the possible motivations for China’s emerging sea-based nuclear force.

I, for one, have always wondered why, if China’s current strategic modernization is intended to reduce the vulnerability of its long-range nuclear deterrent, would China want to cluster a significant portion of its missiles on a few submarines and send then out to sea where U.S. attack submarines can hunt them down?

In theory a sea-based nuclear deterrent is invulnerable because it can hide. But given that the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy in the 1980s was explicitly designed to find and sink Soviet ballistic missile submarines before they could launch their missiles, how secure will China’s sea-based nuclear deterrent actually be? Or how would China react in a crisis, if one of the submarines went missing due to an accident?
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