Nuclear gambling

Keir  Lieber and Daryl Press write about The End of MAD?  The Nuclear Dimension of U.S. Primacy in International Security 30:4 (Spring 2006).

To me, the most important part of Andrew Bacevich's book The New American Militarism (2005) is his analysis of the way in which the Bush Doctrine of preventive war was a direct descendant of nuclear first-strike theories from the Cold War.  Lieber and Press discuss a key part of the larger strategy perspective of the Bush administration, the uses and risks of nuclear supremacy in pursuit of a foreign policy goal of remaining the world's hyperpower forever in a unipolar world dominated by American military power.

The Bush administration's thinking on nuclear policy is closely related to its approach to prventive war.  It's also as reckless, with the potentially consequences even more catastrophic.

Lieber and Press write in their conclusion:

The debates over nuclear forces during the Cold War suggest that a consensus on the foreign policy implications of U.S. nuclear primacy will remain elusive.  “Hawks” will welcome the new era of nuclear primacy, believing that America’s dominance in both conventional and nuclear weapons will help deter potential adversaries from challenging the United States or its allies.  For example, China may be deterred from attacking Taiwan if Chinese leaders understand that their small nuclear force is unlikely to prevent the United States from coming to Taiwan’s defense - and if they fear that during a crisis or war the United States may be tempted to attack their vulnerable arsenal.  Hawks will expect Chinese leaders to reconsider the wisdom of making thinly veiled nuclear threats against the United States.

Arms control analysts - or “owls” - will likely worry that American nuclear primacy may unleash destabilizing forces that undermine U.S. security.  The steps that Russia and China take to reduce their vulnerability could create crisis instability and increase the odds of accidental or unauthorized nuclear war.  For example, both countries will likely place more of their nuclear forces on higher peacetime alert levels, adopt hair-trigger retaliatory postures, or delegate greater launch authority to lower-level commanders - all of which would raise the risk that nuclear weapons could someday be used against the United States.  In short, owls believe that the United States will soon wish it had never pursued nuclear primacy in the first place.

Finally “doves” will not look favorably upon U.S. nuclear primacy, but for different reasons than the owls.  They fear the consequences of a newly emboldened, unconstrained, and assertive United States.  In an era of U.S. primacy across so many dimensions of power (economic, technological, and military), the greatest fear is overly ambitious foreign policies, fueled by a combination of American hubris and power.  According to this view, the pursuit of nuclear primacy is a symptom of the United States’ current misguided foreign policy, which may encourage more misguided adventurism in the future.  (my emphasis)

I'm not sure who it is that would articulate their concerns in the "dove" fashion as they define it. There is certainly good reason to worry about "imperial overreach" in US foreign policy.  But in the long term, nothing threatens the US security so much as nuclear proliferation.  One of the worst effects of the preventive war in Iraq is that it created strong incentives for states like Iran to pursue their nuclear programs more aggressively to deter potential attacks by the United States.

They continue:

Our own view is that the wisdom of pursuing nuclear primacy - in fact, the wisdom of developing any set of military capabilities - must be evaluated in the context of a country’s foreign policy goals.  If the United States continues to pursue global preeminence - defined by the current Bush administration as preventing the emergence of a peer competitor (read: China) and preventing weaker countries from challenging the United States in critical regions such as the Persian Gulf - then the benefits of nuclear primacy may exceed the risks.  If, on the other hand, the United States adopts a more restrained foreign policy -  for example, one that rejects using force to reverse nuclear proliferation and one that accepts the emergence of China as a great power - then the dangers of increased nuclear arms races and crisis instability would likely trump the benefits.

That's a careful Mugwump (fence-sitting) position as far as normative advice on what they actuallyrecommend.  But it's hard to see how staking the future on a policy of bullying other countries into what we want forever and ever can be the best approach.

The following is also a very important point.  The effectiveness of using nuclear threats depends on reasonably accurate assumptions about how the other side is likely to calculate risks.  The history of conventional air power suggests that it's a very difficult thing to achieve.

Finally, new research on the political utility of nuclear superiority and the strength of the nuclear taboo is needed.  Unfortunately, the end of the Cold War diminished interest in these questions just as high-quality data on decisionmaking during nuclear crises became available in historical archives.  Scholars and policy analysts would be wise to ask whether nuclear primacy will give the United States bargaining leverage in crises with major power adversaries - and, if so, whether the gains outweigh the dangers that nuclear primacy may also bring.