Tag Archive for: Deterrence

China and America are not destined for war

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The great-power competition between the United States and China is a defining feature of the first part of this century, but there’s little agreement on how it should be characterised. Some call it an ‘enduring rivalry’ analogous to the one between Germany and Britain prior to the last century’s two world wars. Others worry that America is like Sparta (the dominant power) and China is like Athens (the rising power) in the 5th century BC: the two are ‘destined for war’. The problem, of course, is that a belief in the inevitability of conflict can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

‘Enduring rivalry’ itself is a misleading term. Just think of all the phases the Sino-American relationship has gone through since the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949. In the 1950s, American and Chinese soldiers were killing each other on the Korean peninsula. In the 1970s, after US President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China, the two countries cooperated closely to counterbalance the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, economic engagement increased, and the US supported China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. Not until after 2016 did we enter the current phase of great-power competition, with one US official describing China as a ‘pacing threat’—meaning ‘the only country that can pose a systemic challenge’ to America ‘economically, technologically, politically and militarily.’

But even if enduring rivalry doesn’t imply violent conflict, what about a ‘cold war’? If that term refers to an intense prolonged competition, we are already in one. But if it’s a historical analogy, the comparison is inapt, and risks misleading us about the real challenges the US faces from China. The US and the Soviet Union had a high level of global military interdependence, but virtually no economic, social or ecological interdependence. Today’s Sino-American relationship is different in all those dimensions.

For starters, America can’t decouple its trade and investment completely from China without causing enormous damage to itself and the global economy. Moreover, the US and its allies are threatened not by the spread of communist ideology, but by a system of economic and political interdependence that both sides routinely manipulate. Partial decoupling or ‘de-risking’ on security issues is necessary, but total economic decoupling would be prohibitively costly, and few US allies would follow suit. More countries count China rather than the US as their leading trade partner.

Then there are the ecological aspects of interdependence, which make decoupling impossible. No country can tackle climate change, the pandemic threat or other transnational problems alone. For better and worse, we are locked in a ‘cooperative rivalry’ with China, in need of a strategy that can advance contradictory objectives. The situation is nothing like Cold War containment.

Meeting the China challenge will require an approach that leverages the alliances and rules-based system the US created. Allies like Japan, and partners like India, are assets that China lacks. Although the center of global economic gravity has shifted from Europe to Asia over the past century, India, the world’s most populous country, is one of China’s longstanding rivals. Clichés about the ‘global south’ or solidarity among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are highly misleading, because they ignore internal rivalries within those categories. Moreover, the combined wealth of Western democratic allies will far exceed that of China (plus Russia) well into this century.

To succeed, America’s China strategy must set realistic goals. If the US defines strategic success as transforming China into a Western democracy, it is likely to fail. The CCP fears Western liberalisation, and China is too big to invade or fundamentally change through coercion. This reality cuts both ways: the US has domestic problems, but they certainly don’t owe anything to the attractiveness of Chinese communism. In this important respect, neither China nor the US poses an existential threat to the other—unless they blunder into a major war.

The best historical analogy is not Cold War Europe after 1945 but pre-war Europe in 1914. European leaders welcomed what they thought would be a brief conflict in the Balkans, but instead got the four terrible years of World War I. Some foresee the US and China blundering into a similar war over Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province. When Nixon and Mao Zedong met in 1972, they could not agree on this issue, but they devised a rough formula for managing it that has lasted half a century: no de jure independence for Taiwan, and no use of force against the island by China. Maintaining the status quo requires deterring Beijing while avoiding the provocation of supporting de jure independence for Taiwan. War is a risk, but it is not inevitable.

The US should expect low-intensity economic conflicts with China, but its strategic objectives should be to avoid escalation—what US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently called ‘peaceful coexistence’. That means using deterrence to avoid a hot war, cooperating when possible, leveraging US hard and soft power to attract allies, and marshalling domestic assets to compete successfully. The goal should be to shape China’s external behaviour by strengthening America’s own alliances and international institutions.

For example, the key to advancing US interests in the South and East China Seas is Japan, a close ally that hosts US troops. But since the US also needs to bolster its own economic and technological advantages, it would be wise to adopt a more active Asian trade policy, and to offer assistance to the low- and middle-income countries being wooed by China. Global polls suggest that if the US maintains its domestic openness and democratic values, it will have much greater soft power than China.

Investments in America’s own military power of deterrence are welcomed by the many countries that want to maintain trade relations with China but don’t want to be dominated by it. If the US maintains its alliances and avoids demonisation and misleading historical analogies, ‘cooperative rivalry’ will be a sustainable goal.

Submarines and nuclear umbrellas

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Late in 2022—a year of war, pandemic, climatic disaster and attempted nuclear coercion—a number of news outlets published a photograph of a rare event. True, the photograph was of particular interest to only a small range of viewers: those with an unwholesome fixation on strategic nuclear arsenals. It showed a US Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN), USS Tennessee, on the surface alongside a British Vanguard-class SSBN, somewhere in the Atlantic. Ballistic missile submarines (colloquially called ‘boomers’) from different nations surfacing alongside each other is extremely unusual. But the photo, taken on 22 November during joint training, also included a helicopter apparently conducting anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and a low-flying E-6B Mercury aircraft.

It’s a picture loaded with firepower. The American SSBN has 20 launch tubes, and while the individual warhead loading on each Trident missile may vary, the submarine is probably carrying around 90 warheads. The British SSBN is probably carrying another 40. And then there’s the aircraft. The E-6B has two missions: to act as a relay channel of communications to the US SSBNs, and to support US Strategic Command’s National Command Authority. In its latter mission, the aircraft embarks a small battle staff capable of launching intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The photo was publicly released on 13 December. There’s a lot going on in it, so let’s disentangle the messages. I see five: of alliance solidarity, SSBN survivability, ASW superiority and a resilient line of command authority to deter any attempted decapitation strike against Washington or London. Moreover, it is a reminder to Russian President Vladimir Putin—and the world more generally—what classical nuclear deterrence looks like.

What’s interesting is that the SSBN leg of the triad has been selected to convey those messages. In recent history, ballistic missile submarines have been—for Western nuclear powers at least—the last guardrail of nuclear deterrence. Cruising silently and invisibly in the ocean’s depths, virtually invulnerable to surprise attack, they’re the heart of the US’s assured second-strike capability.

But in this case, the boomers have moved from the invisible realm to the visible. Moreover, US SSBNs have been behaving unusually elsewhere too. USS Rhode Island made a port call in Gibraltar on 1 November. That came hard on the heels of the West Virginia’s port call at Diego Garcia from 26 to 31 October. Since the West Virginia operates out of King’s Bay in Georgia, making a port call in Diego Garcia shows the impressive reach of the boomer fleet. The same submarine had, a couple of weeks earlier, surfaced in the Arabian Sea (of all places) to embark the commander of US Central Command—an implicit message to those who think of US nuclear commitments solely in relation to Europe and the Indo-Pacific that CENTCOM is also linked to the US nuclear deterrent.

What makes the recent wave of port calls a little more puzzling is that US boomers have been going out of their way to prove that they are not dependent on pier-side operations. Granted, during the visit to Diego Garcia, the West Virginia conducted a crew change. But in May 2022, the Alabama demonstrated the ability to swap Blue and Gold crews at sea. And a couple of months later, two SSBNs exercised ‘vertical replenishment’—a fancy name for aerial resupply—while at sea. Washington seems to be signalling that, in a crisis, it is not dependent on port visits to stay on station.

Such visits by US SSBNs have been comparatively rare in recent decades, although in earlier history they used to be more common. The first such visit occurred in April 1963 when USS Sam Houston visited Izmir in Turkey, part of Washington’s attempt to assure the Turks they were still covered by the US nuclear umbrella after the removal of the Jupiter missiles as a tacit coda to the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis.

As the big ballistic-missile-carrying submarines became increasingly defined as the most survivable leg of the US nuclear triad, as the ranges of submarine-launched ballistic missiles improved, and as the possibility of some form of terrorist attack on a submarine in a foreign port went up after the attack on USS Cole, and up again after the 11 September 2001 terror attacks, American SSBNs stayed at sea, on patrol. In 2003, the boats were specifically instructed not to conduct port visits, except to US naval facilities. That rule lasted for 12 years, until late 2015. But even after that, port visits remained unusual. Security is still an important consideration. During the visit to Gibraltar, USS Rhode Island was virtually bubble-wrapped.

Of course, there’s a second part to this story. To fully appreciate what’s happening, readers need to remember the events of 1991. The Cold War was over. And on 27 September, President George H.W. Bush outlined several presidential nuclear initiatives designed to reduce the number of forward-deployed nuclear weapons and to relocate those weapons back to the continental United States. The initiatives covered ship-borne warheads as well as land-based ones, and the effect was to ‘denuclearise’ a large percentage of the US Navy. All surface ships and most submarines—SSBNs were the exception—no longer carried nuclear weapons.

But the world of 1991 didn’t last. In particular, the rise of Asia and the return of great-power strategic competition began to bite. Allies and partners, looking for clearer signals of a US nuclear commitment to their defence, became less enamoured of the non-nuclear navy. That was especially true in the Indo-Pacific, largely a maritime theatre. If the US Navy wasn’t going to contribute to extended nuclear assurance in the region, who was? The air force could certainly deploy highly visible strategic bombers to the region during crises, but the effect was somewhat monopedal.

The recent US nuclear posture review shows that Washington is beginning to think more deeply about the future shape of US extended nuclear deterrence. In the Indo-Pacific, extended deterrence arrangements have traditionally played second fiddle to those in Europe. But the review foreshadows denser consultations, higher-level engagements and, where agreeable, boomer port visits and strategic bomber missions. Such visits would be intended to assure allies and partners of Washington’s continuing commitment to ‘extend’ its strategic nuclear deterrent to the protection of their vital interests.

South Korea looms as a possible starting point, not least because it hosted a steady procession of US SSBNs in earlier decades. Japan and Australia are likely seen as more sensitive cases: neither is accustomed to seeing a visiting SSBN as a form of assurance.

Still, nuclear deterrence is already playing an increasingly large role in the Indo-Pacific, and that role is more likely to grow than shrink. Australian policymakers should be alert to the fact that the nuclear umbrella in the region is taking on a new and more visible form. And we have a special interest in the shelf life of US extended deterrence—putting it brutally, we’re not as well placed as some other US allies to pursue what might euphemistically be called ‘alternative options’.

Achieving ‘deterrence by denial’ will be a major challenge for Australia

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The aim of an Australian Defence Force conventional deterrence by denial capability is to ensure that key combat and support assets survive initial enemy air and missile attacks should Australia become involved in a high-intensity war.

The ADF’s strategic weight must be increased to ensure that it can respond credibly with conventional force, even after an enemy first-strike. Then the ADF must be able to continue combat operations, even under air and missile attack.

Part one of this two-part series outlined options to improve the lethality, sustainability and credibility of ADF combat capabilities. Part two builds on this foundation for deterrence by setting out diversified medium and longer-term strike options to deliver greater reach and conventional combat power to the ADF.

Medium-term strike options might include long-range unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) or very-long-range, road-mobile missiles.

Boeing’s stealthy MQ-28A Ghost Bat UCAV has a range greater than 3,700 kilometres and, with the right research and development investments, could become a high-payload, very-long-range strike asset.

The AUKUS technology-sharing agreement increases significantly collaboration among the US, UK and Australia on development of hypersonic missile technologies. That opens up in the medium term an option for road-mobile conventional missiles with a range of 5,000–8,000 kilometres. Such missiles could use ballistic or hypersonic boost-glide technology and might be fitted with multiple manoeuvrable warheads and decoys, chaff and jammers. Potential payloads include land-attack, anti-ship or anti-submarine warheads.

From Royal Australian Air Force base Tindal in the Northern Territory, a 5,000-kilometre range would allow these missiles to hold at risk an attacker’s land and maritime targets across most of maritime Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. A 6,000-kilometre range would place a potential adversary’s home bases in range.

The use of missiles would have the significant advantage of not requiring vulnerable tankers for in-flight refuelling, especially in face of a technologically advanced major power adversary.

A conventional strike range of 5,000–8,000 kilometres is not unprecedented. China is developing its DF-27 ballistic missile with such a range and its H-20 stealth bomber is mooted to have a payload exceeding 10 tonnes and a range of more than 8,500 kilometres.

Higher level and longer-term options for the ADF could include submarine-launched missiles and a deep-penetrating airborne strike capability. A deep penetrating airborne strike capability would require three critical components—a dedicated and highly protected airbase, bombers and fighter escorts.

In terms of submarine-launched missiles, the different capacities of the UK Astute-class and US Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines is discussed in a previous Strategist piece. Ultimately, the Virginia has a distinct advantage in terms of missile payload and future long-range missile options.

A hardened RAAF base could be constructed in central Australia to support US-produced B-21 Raider stealth bombers and air-superiority escorts with protection from enemy air and missile attack including a missile defence shield and hardened control towers, hangars, runways and taxiways, fuel and ordnance storage, and protection for personnel. Bunkers for personnel would need nuclear, chemical and biological air filtration systems, generators, and stocks of food and water.

To generate a 16-strong combat force of B-21s, the RAAF would require approximately 30 aircraft. A bomber force is usually 55% ‘combat coded’ with 25% for training and 20% in reserve to cover attrition. The B-21’s range and payload is classified but will be vastly superior to those of the RAAF’s F/A-18F Super Hornets or F-35A joint strike fighters.

The third deterrent component would be the US Air Force ‘penetrating counter-air/penetrating electronic attack’ (PCA/PEA) aircraft, which is part of its ‘next generation air dominance’ program. It’s anticipated that this will be an air superiority aircraft able to operate in heavily defended enemy airspace on counter-air missions including sweep, escort, as well as air defence suppression or destruction missions. PCA/PEA aircraft will likely need a very large unrefuelled combat radius to be effective with less dependence on tankers.

The new nuclear era

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Nuclear weapons have been a feature of international relations since August 1945, when the United States dropped two of them on Japan to hasten the end of World War II. None has been used since then, and they arguably helped keep the Cold War cold by forcing a degree of caution on both sides of the confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union. Arms-control negotiations succeeded in limiting both countries’ nuclear arsenals and stopped or slowed nuclear proliferation. Today, only seven other countries (the United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) possess nuclear weapons.

The question now is whether we are on the cusp of a new era of expanding nuclear arsenals, a more prominent role for them in geopolitics and efforts by more countries to acquire them. Adding to the danger is the sense that the nuclear taboo against possessing or even using nuclear weapons is fading, owing to the passage of time and to the emergence of a new generation of so-called tactical nuclear weapons that imply less catastrophic results and therefore may seem more usable.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has made the arrival of this new era more likely in several ways. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine surrendered the nuclear weapons that remained on its territory in exchange for security assurances. Since then, Russia has invaded twice, an outcome that might persuade others that giving up nuclear weapons decreases a country’s security.

Then, in the wake of Russia’s second invasion earlier this year, the US ruled out direct military involvement on behalf of Ukraine owing to a concern that dispatching troops or establishing a no-fly zone could lead to a nuclear World War III. China and others could see this as evidence that possessing a substantial nuclear arsenal can deter the US or at least impel it to act with greater restraint. Most recently, against the backdrop of significant battlefield setbacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons in or near Ukraine in an effort to intimidate Ukrainians and force European governments and the US to rethink their support for Kyiv.

Developments elsewhere have also contributed to a rethinking of the value of nuclear weapons. Regimes and leaders in Iraq and Libya were ousted after abandoning their nuclear-weapons programs, which might lead others to consider the advantages of retaining or developing nuclear capabilities. North Korea’s regime, for its part, remains secure as it continues to expand its nuclear arsenal. The world has likewise learned to live with Israeli, Indian and Pakistani nuclear arsenals.

The danger is that more nuclear weapons in more hands increases the odds that one or more of these unimaginably destructive weapons will be used. Deterrence and responsible custodianship cannot be assumed. Possession of nuclear weapons also has the potential to provide something of a shield that could make non-nuclear aggression more common. Even the belief that a country was moving to develop nuclear weapons could trigger military action by worried neighbours, possibly leading to a larger conflict.

Given these risks, the most immediate task is to ensure that Putin’s nuclear sabre-rattling is not rewarded, lest it set a dangerous precedent. This requires maintaining Western military and economic support for Ukraine, as well as regular reminders to Russia by the US and its allies that the consequences of any nuclear use, both for Russian military forces in Ukraine and for anyone involved in the decision, would far outweigh any perceived benefits.

At the same time, and certainly before early 2026, when the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty limiting the two great nuclear powers’ arsenals expires, the US should signal to Russia its readiness to discuss the next phase of nuclear arms control. The number and types of weapons systems to be limited needs to be on the agenda, as does the inclusion of China.

The US, together with its partners in the region, should also take steps—diplomatic or military if need be —to ensure that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons or get so close that it could achieve nuclear breakout without enough warning for others to prevent it. Failing this, one or more of Iran’s neighbours may well decide they need nuclear weapons of their own. Such a scenario would take the Middle East, for three decades the world’s least stable region, in an even more dangerous direction.

Reviving the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran reached with world powers (and from which the US withdrew in 2018) would help only temporarily, because the agreement features several so-called sunset clauses. That seems too high a price to pay, as it would allow Iran to get out from under significant sanctions, enabling its regime to pursue an even more aggressive foreign policy and provide it a lifeline just when domestic opposition to it is mounting.

Another set of concerns is found in Asia. Attempts to separate North Korea from its nuclear weapons are going nowhere. Full denuclearisation should remain a goal, but in the meantime the US, South Korea and Japan need to consider some form of arms-control proposal that would limit North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and missile systems in exchange for a reduction of sanctions.

The US should also maintain its close alliance with both South Korea and Japan vis-à-vis not just North Korea, but also China. Failure to do so would most likely lead both countries to reconsider their renunciation of nuclear weapons.

For a long time, many scholars and policymakers operated under the illusion that the nuclear problem was a relic of the Cold War. In fact, the world is moving closer to an era that could be defined even more sharply by nuclear weapons. Changing course is imperative, and time is running out.

Getting from megatons to kilotons

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In a recent Strategist piece on the utility of nuclear weapons, Andrew Davies argued that an international treaty banning thermonuclear weapons and limiting yields to the kiloton range could allow nuclear deterrence to hold while avoiding a nuclear winter if it fails. The underpinning logic is that nuclear-weapon states no longer need large-yield warheads to reliably destroy targets because modern nuclear-delivery systems can achieve the same effects with smaller warheads.

While the treaty that Davies suggests has two parts, it’s the ban on megaton-yield weapons that I’ll explore in more depth here, as I think we’re actually closer to that end state than many might think. Most nuclear-weapon states have moved away from deploying megaton-yield nuclear warheads in favour of greater numbers of smaller and more accurate lower-yield warheads. As a result, it may not be as politically difficult as many believe to come to some sort of international agreement limiting weapons that few have right now and even fewer will have in the future.

To set the stage, it’s worth taking a look at how developments in missile accuracy have gotten us to where we are today. A missile’s accuracy is generally referred to in terms of its circular error probable (CEP)—the radius of a circle, centred on the aim point, in which there is a 50% chance the projectile will land. Below is an excellent visual representation of this concept from Alex Wellerstein’s MISSILEMAP blog FAQ (the CEP is 1 km in his example).

Early Cold War–era American and Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were notoriously inaccurate. The American Atlas ICBM had a CEP of 1.8 kilometres, while the Soviet R-7 ICBM had a CEP of 5 kilometres. To compensate for their lack of accuracy, they were mounted with 1+ megaton yield warheads so that even if they, pardon the pun, missed by a mile, they could still destroy their targets.

As Davies points out, modern strategic nuclear-delivery systems are much more accurate than their predecessors. The missiles that constitute the bulk of the current US strategic nuclear arsenal, the Minuteman III and the Trident D-5LE, have CEPs of 120 metres and 90 metres, respectively. On the Russian side, its new Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBMs) is estimated to have a CEP of 250 to 300 metres, and the SS-18 Mod 6 ICBM has a CEP of 500 metres.

The increased accuracy has been accompanied by a general reduction in the average yield of individual warheads in arsenals across the world. Only China currently deploys missiles with 1+ megaton yield warheads, the DF-4 and the DF-5A, and the majority of its other warheads are thought to be in 200 to 300 kiloton range. The US now has only one type of nuclear weapon with a maximum yield of more than 1 megaton—the B83-1 gravity bomb, at 1.2 megatons. The yields of its Trident and Minuteman III warheads range between 100 and 455 kilotons depending on the variant, while yields on comparable Russian systems range from 100 to 800 kilotons. Similarly, the UK and France both mount warheads with yields of between 100 to 150 kilotons on their SLBMs.

So, given that most nuclear-weapon states either no longer deploy or never possessed megaton-yield weapons, a ban on megaton-yield weapons may be more practical and achievable than one might think. Nuclear-weapon states might see it as a way to deter further proliferation and reinforce the nuclear taboo. The ban could also serve as a vehicle for them to demonstrate their commitment to arms control and address concerns among non-nuclear states and civil society groups that nuclear powers haven’t been following through on their obligations to work towards disarmament.

And even if such a ban is politically untenable, we may end up in a situation where no nuclear power deploys any megaton-yield weapons, even if their possession isn’t banned. While the nuclear-taboo-reinforcing norms might not be as strong as they would be if there were a ban, the effect would be fairly similar: there’d be a slightly lower chance of a civilisation-ending nuclear exchange.

Still, hurdles remain. Another reason that warheads now have lower yields is the development of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). MIRVs are highly efficient because a large number of small but focused explosions close to a target has a higher chance of destroying it than one big explosion further away. While a missile today may have lower-yield individual warheads than in the past, each missile remains a potent force capable of destroying multiple targets and killing thousands of people. This problem isn’t a simple one to address; it would require either multilateral arms control treaties that limit the number of deployable warheads—something the New START treaty does—and/or a ban on MIRVs altogether.

We should never forget the horror visited upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki more than 70 years ago with weapons just a fraction as powerful as the ones in missile silos and submarines around the world today. We should do everything we can to reduce nuclear dangers around the world and reinvigorate a troubled arms control regime. A ban on megaton-yield nuclear weapons would be a welcome step in the right direction, even if it wouldn’t do much to reduce current nuclear-weapon stockpiles.

Three ways to improve our deterrence posture in space

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This is the third in our series ‘Australia in Space’ leading up to ASPI’s Building Australia’s Strategy for Space conference in June.

From the beginning, space has been a contested domain and a warfighting domain. The first test of an anti-satellite weapon—the launch of a Bold Orion missile from a US bomber—occurred in 1959, just two years after Sputnik.

Throughout the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union developed and tested a variety of anti-satellite weapons capable of holding each other’s satellites at risk. Thankfully, none of these kinetic weapons were used in anger, but the threat was ever-present. What has changed is our confidence in the ability to deter attacks against our space systems.

During the Cold War, national security space systems were protected by the cloak of nuclear deterrence because space was primarily used to support nuclear forces. But today, Australia, the United States and other allied nations use space to support operations across the full spectrum of conflict, from counterterrorism operations to high-end combat against a near-peer adversary.

Space gives allied military forces global reach, power and influence. But this dependence on space creates a vulnerability because our space systems aren’t protected across the full spectrum of threats. Conflict that begins or extends into space, particularly if it becomes kinetic, won’t end well for anyone.

Our primary focus should therefore be to deter conflict in space. There are three main areas where we can do more to improve our deterrence posture in space.

First, we need a clearer understanding and articulation of the thresholds for escalation in space, especially at the lower end of the spectrum of conflict. Ambiguous escalation thresholds can invite ‘grey-zone aggression’ in space, as we’re seeing occur in other domains today. Adversaries are probing at the seams and finding ways to advance their own ambitions without triggering direct, overt conflict with the United States.

What’s different about space is that we have little history to draw upon, and few widely accepted norms of conduct, to serve as reference points. It’s therefore in our interests to work with international and commercial partners to establish sensible norms of conduct and to abide by them.

Another complicating factor is that adversaries can use methods of attack against space systems that are difficult to detect and attribute, and that may have reversible effects. Examples include cyberattacks, as well as jamming and attacking systems with lasers. It’s nearly impossible to deter an attack if you can’t attribute the source of the attack or know with confidence that the effects being experienced are in fact malicious.

We can’t establish clear and credible thresholds without the ability to detect and attribute threats to our space systems in a timely manner. Australia plays an important role in providing space situational awareness and environmental monitoring for allied nations. Because of its geographical location, it can see parts of the sky that can’t be viewed from the United States or Europe.

A second area where we should focus more effort is the development of innovative space capabilities. The world is in the midst of a renaissance in commercial space, but it’s difficult to take advantage of these advances in commercial space technology if our militaries are tied to sclerotic acquisition policies. The cadre of space personnel—both civilian and military—needs to grow in numbers and be given more opportunities to deepen their space expertise so they can more effectively interface with industry and navigate the labyrinth of military acquisition processes.

The combined space cadre of the United States, Australia and other allied nations is relatively small, and it’s difficult to effectively and efficiently manage such a small workforce. Allied nations should therefore combine resources and develop a fully integrated joint education and training curriculum and expand opportunities for joint operational assignments.

A third and final area that needs more attention is the problem of communicating thresholds and capabilities. While certain aspects of our national security space systems must remain secret to be effective, too often the US military and intelligence community default to over-classification. Much of this is a cultural issue—the legacy of a time when space was primarily the domain of two superpowers and much of what occurred in space was opaque.

Times have changed, but our culture of secrecy hasn’t kept pace. Secrecy invites suspicion among our allies and partners and does little to deter our adversaries. The over-classification of information inhibits the ability of the US government to work with international partners and commercial firms, both of which can play an important role in improving the resilience of US national space systems. And just as important, over-classification is effectively an overhead tax on space activities, adding complexity and time to everything.

Another way to improve the communication of thresholds is to be more explicit with commercial space operators about how attacks on their systems will be treated. Without such clarity, commercial space operators may not be willing to accept the risks of doing business with the government in the event of a crisis.

One approach to consider is an indemnification program for commercial satellite operators (including international firms) that would cover losses incurred due to a conflict, in exchange for a commitment by these firms to prioritise US and allied government customers in a crisis. This isn’t something the United States can or should do alone—the participation and input of allies like Australia is essential to creating a credible and reliable working relationship with the commercial satellite market.

In conclusion, much remains to be done to improve our deterrence posture in space for the wide range of threats we face today. Australia and the United States have a long and rich history of working together in space on civil, military and commercial space programs. Building upon this legacy of successful cooperation, we can help ensure that space remains a peaceful domain that benefits all of humanity.

While there’s no guarantee that all adversaries can or will be deterred from attacking space systems, every effort should be made to raise the costs and reduce the benefits of doing so.

A new nuclear pessimism

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The ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific recently published a small volume of essays titled Nuclear Asia. With North Korea’s nuclear exploits featuring prominently in the headlines over the past 12 months, the issue is certainly topical. And in the 17 essays that make up this volume, the ANU’s editors have tried to ensure both a broad range of subject matter and a diversity of opinion among their authors. But there’s an undeniable bleakness to many of the contributions. Indeed, it’s a publication intended to worry the reader. It explores a number of unsettling trends. And, as Michael Wesley makes plain in his opening chapter, the ‘main purpose [of the current volume] is to try to bring the dangers of these trends much more public and policy attention’.

True, there are nuclear dangers in Asia. Still, they need to be set alongside the strengths of the Asian nuclear order—the overall story isn’t one of unrelieved gloom. Since the late 1990s, the concept of a ‘second nuclear age’ has helped to paint a depressing picture of Asia’s nuclear dynamics. It portrays—in sharp contrast to the first nuclear age—a world of multiple nuclear players: some impoverished or inclined to ready use of weapons of mass destruction, few with robust conventional forces or reliable systems for command and control, and many driven by nationalism rather than game-theory logic. The second nuclear age, forecast Paul Bracken, would see ‘fire in the East’.

That might yet prove right. But so far, it hasn’t. If we’re going to get an accurate picture of the Asian nuclear order, we need to balance that portrayal with an understanding that other forces are also at play. Asia’s nuclear order turns heavily upon the notion of voluntary self-restraint. That restraint can be seen in the general slowness of Asian nuclear programs, their small arsenal sizes, the relative absence of nuclear arms races, the recessed character of most Asian deterrence settings, and the fact that most Asian nuclear-weapon states are still developing countries with economic priorities.

The essay by Brendan Taylor and David Envall—on why the arms-race model doesn’t fit well in today’s Asian nuclear dynamics—is a sober and nicely constructed piece that does pay appropriate regard to the stabilising features of the regional order. Their chapter hews rigorously to a close definition of ‘arms racing’ and is measured and thoughtful—a useful reminder that even though voluntary self-restraint’s under pressure, a valuable residue remains.

So why is the overall mood so much darker? North Korea is obviously a major part of the answer. Kim Jong-un hasn’t looked self-restrained in 2017. The pace and scope of Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs have been deeply troubling. But President Trump has also contributed to the darkening of the nuclear mood, and the statements of some senior figures in his administration have done little to dampen concerns.

The overall effect has been to make more immediate a set of worries which had previously been seen primarily through a more abstract, academic lens. For example, several of Nuclear Asia’s authors take exception to the fact that advanced conventional weapons are increasingly intruding upon the nuclear realm, with destabilising consequences. The claim’s true, of course. Ballistic missile defences, long-range precision-guided munitions, and offensive cyber operations are making strategic nuclear balances complex and escalation ladders complicated. But if we’re ever going to see nuclear disarmament, conventional weapons have to take over those key deterrence and defensive missions now performed by nuclear ones. Keeping the realms separate—and how do we do that exactly?—isn’t going to work.

Besides, accepting the inevitable intrusion of advanced conventional weapons into the nuclear realm is part of the cure for the affliction that Tanya Ogilvie-White, in her essay, labels ‘nuclear fatalism’. Nuclear fatalism, she argues, reflects a mood of growing resignation that nuclear weapons are going to be around indefinitely, that disarmament diplomacy is feckless and nuclear war inevitable. If that’s the definition, I’m not sure I know many nuclear fatalists. Sure, nuclear weapons won’t disappear anytime soon. But arms control remains a valuable exercise—not least in helping to ensure that nuclear war isn’t inevitable.

Despite the new nuclear pessimism, we shouldn’t succumb to a counsel of despair. The Asian nuclear order is stronger than it looks. The complexities of greater interaction between the nuclear and conventional domains have an upside—they’re the inevitable product of a strategic environment in which nuclear weapons have a smaller role. And the human race is not doomed to inevitable nuclear extermination. But—and this is a big but—neither have strategic competition and war disappeared from the world. The struggle for geopolitical pre-eminence and first-mover advantage continues. Strategy is not dead.

It’s been a challenging year for those keen to promote the broader nuclear ordering project. Let’s hope 2018 brings better tidings.

Nuclear weapons and first use

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Image courtesy of Flickr user International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Recent media reports suggesting that President Obama’s considering embracing a no-first-use pledge in US nuclear declaratory policy have certainly rekindled the debate over the wisdom of such a move. The debate’s not new, and resonances of its earlier rounds abound. Over at Arms Control Wonk, Michael Krepon has penned a couple of thoughtful pieces (here and here), essentially supporting the notion of a no-first-use policy—just not yet. On the other side of the debate, Elbridge Colby’s argued that a no-first-use declaration would be a deep strategic error. Andrew Shearer’s argued a similar line over at War on the Rocks.

In arms control terms, no-first-use pledges have a superficial attractiveness. For one thing—if they could be taken at face value—they would imply an important raising of the nuclear threshold. If all nine current nuclear weapon states were to embrace them, none would ever use nuclear weapons first in a conflict. And the essential role of nuclear weapons would be limited to deterring, and responding to, an adversary’s use of nuclear weapons in violation of that pledge.

But can they be taken at face value? One of the central problems with a no-first-use pledge is that it’s inherently incredible. Such a pledge says that a nuclear weapon state is content to lose a war at the conventional level without resorting to nuclear weapons. Perhaps that’s the case with some limited conventional conflicts fought over peripheral rather than core interests. But it’s not true in relation to all conventional conflicts. All of the nuclear weapon states have some interests the loss of which they would regard as intolerable. Such prospect of loss would excite resort to nuclear weapons. If it didn’t, why would they have built them in the first place?

The second problem is one of strategic utility. If nuclear weapons are useful in deterring major war, why are we so anxious to ensure they deter only nuclear use? NATO strategists in the days of the Cold War used to argue plausibly that theatre- and tactical-range nuclear weapons helped offset the possibility of Soviet conventional aggression by making it more difficult for the Warsaw Pact to concentrate its tank armies. Any such massing of forward-deployed armour would be a potential target for a NATO nuclear weapon. In short, NATO’s option of crossing the threshold first helped to lengthen the odds that it would ever need to do so. NATO’s logic then remains just as compelling today for any nuclear weapon state which feels itself conventionally outgunned.

Even those nuclear weapon states confident about their own conventional strength might well see a role for nuclear weapons in constraining an adversary’s options. The US found itself in exactly that position in the early 1990s, leading the multinational force engaged in expelling Saddam’s forces from Kuwait. Veiled US threats then that Washington would regard any Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction—essentially chemical weapons—as opening the door to possible US nuclear weapon use, were designed to constrain Iraqi options and leverage the multinational force’s conventional advantage.

Then there’s a third problem—assurance. A US no-first-use pledge would play merry havoc with its extended nuclear assurances to its allies. Allies would worry about both of the first two problems: that a US which was serious about its no-first-use pledge might be more inclined to see their interests as peripheral rather than vital; and that they’re more exposed to shifts in regional conventional force balances than is the US itself. That’s broadly true for all US allies around the Eurasian rimlands, but the rapid growth of Chinese conventional power in Asia makes this factor particularly telling in Australia’s own region.

For all those reasons, a sudden step towards a no-first-use pledge by an American president in the last six months of his office would be a worrying development. True, the 2010 US Nuclear Posture Review pointed to a future in which the US would ‘seek to reduce the role and numbers of nuclear weapons’. But Washington balked at making a ‘sole purpose’ declaration—essentially a declaration that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons was to deter any use of nuclear weapons by an adversary—during that Review. And it’s hard to argue that nuclear weapons have become more irrelevant in the years since. There’s strategic value in the current policy. That, by the way, isn’t a pledge to use nuclear weapons first; it’s merely a refusal to pledge not to do so. That position retains the possibility of first use—which is probably unappetising for some, but fulfils the tests of credibility, deterrence and assurance. If we have to live through the nuclear age, let’s at least make sure the weapons make a positive contribution to international security.