The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy

Also by Lawrence Freedman

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THE EVOLUTION OF NUCLEAR STRATEGY

THE GULF CONFLICT 1990-91 (with Efraim Karsh)

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NUCLEAR WAR AND NUCLEAR PEACE twith Edwina Moreton. Gerald Segal andlohn Baylis)

THE POLITICS OF BRITISH DEFENCE POLICY, 1979-1998

POPULATION CHANGE AND EUROPEAN SECURITY (co-editedwithlohn Saunders)

THE REVOLUTION IN STRATEGIe AFFAIRS

SIGNALS OF WAR (with Virginia Gamba-Stonehousei

THE SOUTH ATLANTIC CRISIS OF 1982: Implications for Nuclear CrisisManagement

STRATEGIC COERCION

STRATEGIC DEFENCE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE

SUPERTERRORISM

THE TREATY ON CONVENTIONAL ARMED FORCES IN EUROPE (with CathetineMcArdle Kelleher and [ane Sharpi

THE TROUBLED ALLIANCE: Atlantic Relations in the 1980s

US INTELLIGENCE AND THE SOVIET STRATEGIC THREAT

US NUCLEAR STRATEGY: AReader tco-edited with Philip Bobbitt and GregoryTreverton)

WAR: AReader

WAR, STRATEGY AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS (co-editedwith Paul Hayes andRobert O'Neill)

THE WEST AND THE MODERNIZATION OF CHINA

The Evolution of NuclearStrategy

Third Edition

Lawrence FreedmanProfessor of WarStudiesKing's College, London

2002192654

*© Lawrence Freedman 2003

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of thispublication may be made without written permission.

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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publicationmay be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted his right to be identifiedas the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First edition published 1981Reprinted seven timesSecond edition 1989Third edition 2003

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataFreedman, Lawrence.The evolution of nuclear strategy/Lawrence Freedman. - 3rd ed.

p.cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-0-333-97239-7 (pbk.)1. Nuclear warfare. 2. Military policy.1.Title.

U263.F698 20033SS.02'17-dc21

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ISBN 978-0-333-97239-7 ISBN 978-0-230-37943-5 (eBook)DOI 10.1057/9780230379435

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Seetion 1 First and Seeond Thoughts

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xiii

1

1 The Arrival of the Bomb 3The transformation of war 3Strategie bombardment 4The politieal seienee of airpower 6The experienee of World War 11 9Retaliation and the 'V' weapons 12The atom bomb 13The strategy of Hiroshima 16

2 Offenee and Defenee 21The persistenee of the doetrine of strategie bombardment 21The new strategie environment 23The possibility of defenee 28

3 Aggression and Retaliation 32The vital first blow 32The atom bomb and aggressors 34Early thoughts on deterrenee 37

Seetion 2 Towards a Poliey of Deterrenee 43

4 Strategy for an Atomic Monopoly 45Atom bombs and the Ameriean way of war 45The limits of the bomb 46First or last resort 49The bomb enters war plans 51Atom bombs and the Soviet way of war 53The Permanently Operating Faetors 56

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vl Contents

5 Strategy for an Atomic Stalcmate 60The Soviet bomb 60The 'super' bomb 61Tactical nuclear weapons 64NSC-68 66Korea 68The conventional strategy 69

6 Massive Retaliation 72The British conversion 74The New Look 76Dulles and massive retaliation 79The spirit of the offence 84

Section 3 Limited War 87

7 Limited Objectives 89Consensus on a nuclear strategy 89The concept of limited war 93Limited objectives 97

8 Limited Means 101Limited nuclear war 101The Soviet view 105Graduated deterrence 107On strategy and tactics 111

Sect io n 4 The Fear of Surprise Attack 115

9 The Importance of Being First 117On winning nuclear wars 117Prevention or pre-emption 119The virtues of counter-force 121The blunting mission 123Preparing for war 125A sense of vulnerability 128The delicacy of the balance 130

10 Sputniks and t h e Soviet Threat 131The impact of Sputnik 131First str ikes for whom? 132

Soviet strategy after StalinThe logic of pre-emptionConclusion

11 The Technological Arms RaceThe Killian ReportThe Gaither ReportMutual fears of surprise attackTechnology and stability

Section 5 The Strategy of Stable Conflict

12 The Formal StrategistsMilitary problems and the scientific methodGame TheoryPrisoner's Dilemma and Chicken

13 Arms ControlThe strategy of stable conflictDisarmament to arms controlThe disarmers disarmed

14 Bargaining and EscalationBargainingEscalationTactics in escalationEscalation dominanceThe threat that leaves something to chance

Section 6 From Counter-Force toAssured Destruction

15 City-AvoidanceMcNamara's bandA strategy of multiple optionsCity-avoidanceRetreat from city-avoidance

16 Assured DestructionAssured destructionMutual assured destruction

Contents vii

136138144

146149151153ISS

163

165166171175

179180184188

196196198199203206

213

215216220222226

232233234

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Disillusion with defenceThe action-reaction phenomenon

17 The Soviet Approach to DeterrenceThe strategie learning curveGuidelines for stabilityA 'second-best deterrent'The Ameriean challengeThe Brezhnev years

18 The Chinese ConnectionThe People's WarAtom bombs as paper tigers

Seetion 7 The European Dimension

236240

243243245247250254

258259261

269

19 A Conventional Defence for Europe 271Theories of conventional war 273European attitudes 278Towards a conventional balance 281Conclusion 286

20 The European Nuclear Option: (i) Anglo-Saxon Views 288NATO and the Nth problem 289The British nuclear force 292

21 The European Nuclear Option: (ii) French andGerman Views 298Gallois 299Beaufre 302De Gaulle 305German strategy 309The multilateral force (MLF) 311Conclusion 313

Seetion 8 Retreat from Assured Destruction

22 Military-lndustrial ComplexitiesThe McNamara legacyThe military-industrial complexForce planning under Nixon

315

317319321324

Contents ix

23 The Consensus Undermined 328The Soviet build-up 329The action-inaction phenomenon 330The shame of assured destruction 331New technologies 334Arms control 338

24 Parity 342Calm over parity 343Concern over superiority 346Perceptions 349Measuring the balance 352

25 Selective Options 355If deterrence should 'fail' 355The search for options 358'The Schlesinger doctrine' 360Options for a European war 365ICBM vulnerability 369The political science of nuclear strategy 375

26 The Reagan Administration andthe Great Nuclear Debate 378From the second cold war to the second detente 378The rise of anti-nuclear protest 381The changing American climate 383To prevail or countervail 385The counter-attack 388From prevailing to defending 391From defence to arms control 397Soviet doctrine 400Extended deterrence 404

27 The Threat Evaporates 407The revolution in military affairs 411Mutual assured security 414The last great debate 418Elimination or marginalization 424The return of missile defences 429Employment options 431

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28 The Second Nuclear Age 435Arguing about deterrence 437Pessimism and proliferation 440Multipolarity 441The GulfWar 447Pre-emption 451

29 Can there be a Nuclear Strategy? 458

Notes 465

Bibliography 519

Subiect Index 549

Name Index 558

Acknowledgements

The issues discussed in the following pages have been the common fareof strategists wherever and whenever they have met for almost sixtyyears. Since 1975, when I began writing this book, I have been fortunateenough, as a member of the staff of, first the International Institute forStrategie Studies, then the Royal Institute of International Affairs andnow King's College, London, to have had many opportunities to discussquestions of contemporary strategy with most of the leading membersof the profession. In the course of my research I have therefore benefitedfrom discussion and often argument with large numbers of people onaspects of this study. They are too numerous to mention by name butsome deserve particular thanks. My thoughts still go back to the lateAlastair Buchan, as responsible as anyone for not only encouragingindependent analysis of the big issues of war and peace but also for insti­tutionalizing it at IISS. Not long before his premature death, as I wasstarting to organize my thoughts on how best to approach this subject,I was able to talk to hirn a number of times. The advice he gave wh ichstuck most firmly in my mind was 'if you are writing a history of ideasyou must be bold'. It is this advice that I have tried to follow. Whetherthe attempt has been successful I leave it to the reader to judge.

Christoph Bertram, then Alastair's successor at IISS, asked me toundertake this study in the first place, and gave me constant encour­agement, and not a little prodding, to complete it. In this he wasably assisted by the late Jonathan Alford who suggested some valuableimprovements to an early version of this manuscript. Sir MichaelHoward, who served as my mentor from my days as a graduate studentat Oxford, and thankfully still does so, provided not only guidance onhow to treat the subject but, in his own books, offers a model for anyaspiring historian of strategic thought. In 1976 he chaired aseries ofseminars I gave at Oxford, which provided an early opportunity to tryout my ideas on a critical audience. During the course of drafting thefirst edition of this book a number of people either read individual chap­ters or have served as asounding board for my ideas: Des Ball; RichardBurt; Richard Haas; Frank Klotz; Barry Posen; Greg Treverton; and Phi!Williams. The late Albert Wohlstetter showed kindness not only in dis­cussing the development of strategie studies but in providing copies ofrelevant documents. Iames King, now also sadly deceased, permitted me

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xii Acknowledgements

to read a copy of his own masterly unpublished study entitled The NewStrategy. Debbie Van Opstall Ginsberg, who also read and commentedupon many of the chapters, helped in the construction of the bibliogra­phy. jean Pell typed many of the chapters. jane Capper took on the mainburden of typing and organizing the manuscript into a form suitable fürthe publishers as well as helping with the bibliography and occasionallyadvising on syntax.

Since those days I have been fortunate to come into contact withmany of the people whose writings I have used and commented upon. Ihope that they will excuse me for not mentioning them all by name. Mycolleagues and students at King's College have also provided a readysource of ideas and criticisms. I can think of no place where I wouldhave rather worked over the past two decades.

In the first edition I was able to thank my wife judith für her remarkabletolerance with my continued fascination with the rather disagreeable sub­ject of nuclear war. It is another part of my good fortune that I am stillable to do so.

Some of material in Chapter 26 first appeared as 'The Reagan Legacy' inIoe Kruzel (ed.), The American Defense Annual 1988/89 (Lexington, MA:Lexington Books, 1988).

L.D.F.

Introduction

On 6 August 1945 the first atomic bomb was dropped on the ]apanesecity of Hiroshima. At least 66,000 people died almost immediately fromthe explosion and fire-storm that followed. Tens of thousands more diedin the aftermath. Three days after the first explosion, a second bomb wasdropped on the ]apanese city of Nagasaki. The immediate dead nu m­bered some 40,000 people. The smaller size of the city and the hilly ter­rain meant that the devastation was not as complete as with Hiroshima.About 40 per cent of the city's structures were destroyed or severelydamaged, as against 80 per cent in Hiroshima.

The weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki producedexplosions equivalent to that produced with 14,000 and 20,000 tons ofTNT respectively, an explosive power described as being 14 or 20 kilo­tons. Many of the nuclear warheads now in the possession of the majorpowers are in the megaton range; that is they would result in explo­sions equivalent to that produced with 1 million or more tons of TNT.lf a 1-megaton bomb is exploded at the height necessary to achievemaximum destruction, all brick houses would be destroyed out to31!z miles, with comparatively minor damage out to 13 miles. The blastwould create winds sufficient to hurl objects (and even people)through the air at lethal speeds, out to 61/ 2 miles. Within a radius ofabout 6 miles most fabrics and paper will burst into flame. As far out as11 miles the explosion could cause second-degree bums and ignite dryleaves. The explosion would take its toll in human life for the follow­ing weeks and months through radiation sickness and the spread ofdisease and hunger that can be expected to follow the breakdown ofsocial organization. Any unborn children subjected to irradiationwould be likely to be born deformed. It is not altogether clear whetheror not a human society could recover from the aftermath of a nuclearwar. The material, physical, and psychic destruction might weil be toosevere. The sense of immediate danger may have eased with the end ofthe cold war: the arsenals remain, even in reduced form, as its mostfrightful legacy. This is still the most developed and best understoodmeans by which whole countries can be destroyed in an instant. lf thedeed were to be done it could be done quickly. Our collective future isstill hostage to continuing acts of self-restraint by the leaders of theworld's major powers.

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xiv lniroduction

Whatever the prior security commitments or stakes in a particularconflict, few events would rock national, regional or global society morethan aseries of nuclear detonations, or even just one. While a warinvolving small nuclear powers need not necessarily raise such apoca­lyptic seenarios as those developed for a superpower war - with thespectre of a true end to history as the northern hemisphere is desolatedand possibly even blacked out - there has yet to be developed any con­cept of a 'small' nuclear war. Any nuclear use still moves us into the areaof unimaginable catastrophe.

This disproportionate character guarantees some deterrent effect inany situation in which there is the slightest chance of the employmentof nuclear weapons. For this reason their presence has been consideredbeneficial as a means of consolidating a political status qua. They pro­vide those who possess them with an ultimate guarantee of securityagainst external aggression and thus, in principle, the possibility of pro­tecting the most vital interests in the most hostile environments, whileavoiding dependence upon allies. However, for the same reason theskewed distribution of nuclear power leaves those without their owncapabilities potentially more insecure. Moreover, even for those in pos­session, this power is best applied against putative threats from otherstates with expansionist tendencies. There is little experience againstwhich to assess its relevance in the face of internal threats to the securityof states or non-state actors.

The cost of developing and maintaining this enormous destructivecapacity has been huge. The most thorough estimate, in 1996 dollars,suggested that it had consumed $409.4 billion on construction, $3,241billion on deployment, $831.1 billion on targeting and controlling,$937.2 billion on defences and then $31.1 billion on dismantling ele­ments of the arsenal with another $365.1 billion on waste management,making for a grand total of $5,821 billion. Every year just sustaining thenuclear arsenal required another $35 billion. In addition, possibly tensof thousands of people died prematurely as a result of the radioactivematerials thrown into the atmosphere until tests were forced under­ground after 1963.] Nuclear fallout does not recognize internationalborders.

These costs, accumulated over time, would obviously be dwarfed by anuclear war, to a level which would defy all accounting. But they wouldalso be dwarfed by the costs of non-nuclear war among the great powers.In this respect there is a respectable case that this was all money wellspent, or at least, that it has enabled humankind to make the best of abad job by providing a compelling case for restraint and accommodation

lntroduction xv

in areas of confrontation. In particular, during the cold war, whichpitted two ideologica11y-opposed alliances against each other, the risk ofnuclear disaster was credited as being the source of a welcome cautionthat allowed the most dangerous days of this conflict to be endured.When this a11 came to an end, ho pes rose that at last there could bemovement towards a nuclear-free world. Unfortunately its practical real­ization remains distant. The knowledge of how to develop and producenuclear weapons is widely known. So long as we do not have a conflict­free world the fear that this knowledge will be exploited by theunscrupulous limits the possibilities for complete disarmament. Even ifcurrent stocks were eliminated, during the course of a conflict newstocks could be produced (especia11y if civilian nuclear facilities had notbeen eliminated). Nor do nuclear explosions exhaust the possible hor­rors that human beings can inflict on each other. Given a11 this, it is asdifficult to be optimistic about a future without nuclear weapons as it isto comprehend the consequences of their use.

At least the awfulness of the weapons, and the inescapable vulnerabil­ity of a11 to nuclear attack, continues to provide comfort that their use asinstruments of policy might be degraded. This now appears to be theview of a11 the major powers. Their military planning is no longer builtaround nuclear contingencies. At the same time the possibility that theregimes of desperate or reckless states or even non-state groups mightnot only get hold of these weapons but also that they might even bein some sense beyond deterrence when contemplating their use hascreated new anxieties.

When 1 first began work on this topic, the difficulty of keeping up todate with the detail of new weapons or the latest arms control proposals,plus the desire to influence future decisions, meant that those engagedin contemporary strategic studies tended to be technica11y sophisticated,forward-Iooking and policy-orientated. This had led, with a few notableexceptions.? to a neglect of the history of the subject. During the 1980sthere was a growing in terest in the history of nuclear weapons, doctrinesand strategies and a number of studies catered to this interest. A majorinternational endeavour - the Nuclear History Project - was set up topul! together the efforts of researchers.:' As post-war archives wereopened, and as scholars learned to exploit the American Freedom ofInformation Act and new archives from the communist bloc, the firstpost-war decades were thoroughly studied.? These studies include excel­lent histories of the construction of the atomic and hydrogen bornbs,"the attempts to use the new atomic weapons to support post-warAmerican drplomacy," the later röle of nuclear weapons in East-West

xvi Introduction

relations.? analysis of key decisions, such as that to build the hydrogenbomb," and the detailed development of nuclear plans.? Transcripts ofthe meetings of senior policy-makers during the Cuban Missile Crisiscast a completely new light on the established views of the crists.!" Inaddition to one book based on interviews with key figures in the devel­opment of nuclear thinking.!' there have been studies of some of thekey figures who have helped to shape both policy and our generalunderstanding of nuclear issues, such as Paul Nitze.l'' while others suchas Glenn Seaborg and Herbert York have written valuable memoirs.l ' InBritain and France too there has been a growing interest in both earlythinking about nuclear weapons.!" and the continuity in doctrine." Theopening up of Soviet and Chinese archives has meant that there is nowthe possibility of a two-sided nuclear history, 16 and even the policies oflesser nuclear countries, such as India and Israel, can now be investi­gated using first-rate studiesY The International disarmament move­ment also enjoys an excellent history.l" There are now some studiesof key figures in the strategic studies cornmuntty,!? some of the keyconcepts.s" and also the strategic studies communtty.P

It is now more than twenty years since the first edition of this bookwas published. When the second edition was published, on the eve ofthe end of the cold war, I decided against a major revision on thegrounds that my main focus was on the public and academic debatessurrounding nuclear strategy, and while it was important to know thenature of the deliberations that had taken place in governments this wasnot my main concern. This provided a useful excuse for not incorporat­ing what was already a substantial literature on the history of nuclearpolicies. This literature has grown even more since then. I have stilldecided against a complete rewrite, for reasons both of length and Iocus,so while the bulk of this book remains as it was first published, I havebrought the manuscript up to date to reflect the post-cold war era. Inaddition to two new chapters, I have rewritten the introduction as weilas the conclusions.

This is not to say that my own analysis would not also have evolvedover the years. 22 The other thing that I have not changed is the title.I noted in 1981 that the use of the word 'evolution' was somewhat mis­leading for it suggested progress along a learning curve, implying ahigher level of present understanding than in previous years. This hadbeen the assumption with which I had begun my research. By the timeI had completed the study, I believed it to be false. What impressed mewas the cyclical character of the debates. Much of what was offered asa profound and new insight was said yesterday; and usually in a more

Introduction xvii

concise and literate manner. The rich literature of earlier decades wasbarely appreciated by many contemporary students of strategy, espe­cially those close to policy-making circles. Even after the cold war thedebates remain remarkably cyclical, with, for example, the question ofballistic missile defence now in its third great debate.

The richness of the literature provides a powerful disincentive to any­one contemplating a eomprehensive survey. It still remains difficult notto be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the material that has beengenerated. In addition to professional writings of military men andrefleetions of politicians presiding over nuclear arsenals, there has beena vast outpouring of books, articles, papers and memos from civiliansrepresenting many academic disciplines and often organized intoresearch institutes concerned with few things other than the problemsof national security. Their writings were replete with new and arcaneeoneepts, wh ich sometimes served to clarify but often only obfuscated,and were caught up with a forbidding miasma of acronyms and jargon.Since the end of the cold war the extremely technical material is nolonger so prominent, with one welcome result that the new literature onthe topic shows great improvements in lucidity and style.

In the same way that a military historian is not expected to reeordevery campaign so a historian of ideas does not have to reeord everydocumented thought, especially when so much is repetitive and deriva­tive. This work is selective, and in eonsequenee the discussion of someareas such as conventional strategy, and particularly naval warfare, isinadequate; also, I have concentrated on the strategie debate in theUnited States, the most vigorous and fertile, though without neglectingthe parallel debates in the Soviet Union, Britain, Franee and China. Theaim is to provide a systematic and reasonably comprehensive treatmentof the major themes of nuclear strategy. To this end, the most import­ant individual contributions to the debate have been analysed in somedetail, but this is not a colleetion of critiques of great texts and sosome favourite authors may not have got the attention they deserve.Similarly, while I have been eoneerned to examine the interactionbetween theory and poliey, this is not a history of decision-making.

Finally, to eomplete this list of wh at the book does not offer, it pro­vides neither a theory of strategy nor a new strategie theory. What itdoes attempt to offer is a detailed and eritieal history of official andunofficial attempts to construet a plausible nuclear strategy. As theseattempts have eome from a variety of sources and appeared in a varietyof forms there is no fixed pattern to this investigation and it is onlyloosely ehronologieal. I believe this approach to be neeessary, not only

xviii Introduction

to highlight the major issues, but also to illuminate the more generalexpeetations, understandings and preoeeupations that have character­ized strategie thinking sinee 1945.

A book about strategy ought to begin with adefinition of the subjeet.There has been no eonstant and generally aeeepted definition of strat­egy, even during the post-war years. The origins of the word 'strategy' liein the Greek strategos, meaning the art of the general. There was littleneed to signifieantly alter the meaning even up to the time of Generalvon Clausewitz (1780-1831) who defined the eoneept of strategy as theuse of battles to forward the aim of war. By the twentieth eentury such adefinition was blatantly inadequate. The preoeeupation with battles,always questionable, failed to aIlow for the great variety in the methodsof employing military forees and the ehoiee of targets. Furthermore, thelink with war itself was too direet. When war-fighting was so distasteful,it might be as important to preserve the peaee by reminding a potentialenemy of the eosts of war or even to aehieve aggressive objeetives byencouraging a weaker eountry to give in without a fight. The definitionof strategy developed by Basil LiddeIl Hart - 'the art of distributing andapplying military means to fulfil ends of poliey'23 - seems more appro­priate. It is non-comrnittal about how the military means are to be dis­tributed while stressing, as would Clausewitz, the röle of the politiealsphere as the souree of strategie objeetives. It also maintains the eon­neetion with military means, and in this differs from other eontendingdefinitions. Such adefinition clearly also rejeets the view that when thevalue of military instruments has been blunted by the exeessive eostsattendant on their use, aIl the means of national power - politieal andeeonomie as weIl as military - should be incorporated into adefinitionof strategy. If we have to foeus on aIl methods of prevailing in any giveneonfliet, the study of strategy eeases to be distinet from the study ofdiplomaey or of international relations in general and the sense that weare dealing with 'funetional and purposive violence' is 10st.24

If some have sought to broaden the term, others have sought toeonstriet it. When fledgling air forces, after World War 1,were anxious todemonstrate that they possessed a means for getting right to the heart ofthe enemy's power and destroying it with some well-chosen blows, theydeseribed this as a 'strategie' eapability. Thus they spoke of 'strategiebombardment', using 'strategie bombers', eventually under a 'StrategieAir Command' (SAC). After 1945, nuclear weapons, best able to performthis mission, eame to be known as 'strategie weapons', and a war inwhieh they were to be used would be a 'strategie war'. This use ofthe adjeetive 'strategie' has very little to do with the noun 'strategy'.

Introduction xix

The eonneetion has beeome even more tenuous, with 'strategie' tightlydefined, in the 'strategie arms reduetion talks' by referenee to the rangesof eertain weapons. A weapon that eould be direeted from the homelandof one superpower against the homeland of the other was strategie.During the cold war, it was diffieult to avoid this sort of use, as it was thelanguage in whieh nuclear issues were diseussed. Sinee the end of thecold war this narrow use has fallen from favour, and while there is stilltalk of the strategie uses of air power, strategy is being used again in itswider context."

The muddled use of this fundamental term prepares us for the muddleof nuclear strategy itself. Initially, when atom bombs first made theirdramatic entranee onto the international stage, they were diseussed andunderstood in terms derived from the established theories of airpower.Eventually, nuclear weapons became more powerful, more numerousand, crucially, possessed by more than one nation. New eoneepts andapproaehes developed in an attempt to come to terms with a situationin whieh a war in which the most formidable weapons available wereused would, in all probability, be eatastrophie for all eoneerned. Thequestion has been whether any useful purpose eould be served byemployment of devices which invited diseussion using words such as'holocaust', 'doomsday' and 'armageddon', and whether any employ­ment could be sufficiently deliberate and eontrolled to ensure thatpolitieal objeetives were met. Whieh means that at issue has beenwhether a 'nuclear strategy' is a eontradiction in terms.