Cold War “firebreaks” between conventional and nuclear conflict are breaking down:
Russia has not only developed new, relatively low-yield tactical nukes but also routinely wargamed their use to stop both NATO and Chinese conventional forces should they overrun Moscow’s feeble post-Soviet military, Watts said this morning at the headquarters of the Air Force Association. Pakistan is likewise developing tactical nukes to stop India’s much larger military. Iran seeks nuclear weapons not only to offset Israel’s but to deter and, in the last resort, fend off an American attempt to perform “regime change” in Tehran the way we did in Baghdad. The US Air Force and Navy concept of “AirSea Battle” in the Western Pacific could entail strikes on the Chinese mainland that might provoke a nuclear response.
It’s precisely because US conventional power is so overwhelming that the temptation to turn to nuclear weapons to redress the balance is so irresistible. Ten years ago, the Iraqis sidestepped American dominance in the middle of the spectrum of conflict – regular warfare with tanks, planes, and precision-guided non-nuclear weapons – by going low and waging guerrilla warfare, for which the US proved painfully unprepared. In the future, nuclear proliferation means more and more countries will have the option to sidestep US conventional power by going high and staging a “limited” nuclear attack, for which we aren’t really prepared either. Indeed, some countries, notably a nuclear Iran with its terrorist proxies and North Korea with its criminal ties and special operations forces, could outflank America’s conventional military from both sides at once.
That post made me think of good ol’ Davy Crockett — link one, link two, link three, all with pictures! — stationed in Germany to counter large formations of Soviet Armor formations.
And speaking of Germany:
“West German defense minister Franz-Josef Strauss had wanted nukes for his country, too. He seemed to want them so badly that Henry Kissinger, who had talked with Strauss, apparently in May 1961, notified the U.S. government that American nuclear weapons in West Germany needed to be secured, so as to make it physically impossible to take them, or to use them without U.S. consent. Strauss might simply take them, if he deemed that necessary.
The U.S. forces reacted by fortifying their nuclear bases, Der Spiegel suggested in January this year, drawing on the memory of former U.S. colonel Charles Sanford (now deceased). German greed for them apparently required the measure, in America’s view.” Found here.
I could have sworn I’d written about the Davy Crockett before. It turns out that I only mentioned it in passing while discussing a model B-52 with working jet engines.
I have long been of the opinion that the artificial mystique of nuclear weapons will break down in the coming century, in part due to the development of far more terrifying weapons and perhaps also due to the development of “fourth generation” nuclear weapons (did a blog post on them a while back).
My prediction would be that the the period 2013-2050 will see the first use of nuclear weaponry (in anger) since 1945.
A link to the mentioned blog post: Into the Fourth Generation?
Thanks, Slovenian Guest. Don’t know why I didn’t link to it myself.
I actually wrote that quite a while before I posted it to the blog and some of the information is now out of date. For instance we no longer employ the SIOP per se, but the current OPLAN is broadly similar in approach: massive retaliation with high-yield fusion weapons against a large-scale attack by an enemy state (cough Russia/China cough). The details are, of course, classified.
I’m still a fan of smaller weapons used in larger numbers due to the practicalities of the matter, and I’d be in favor of production of at least some Enhanced Radiation Weapons (ERWs – Neutron Bombs) to expand our strategic options. Of course, none of that is politically feasible in the current climate.
The big issue as I see it is that current technological advances in automation, manufacturing, and high-energy technologies are proceeding very rapidly, much more so than I thought likely even a few years ago. We see the lead-end of the change this will produce in the current trends of nuclear proliferation. The cost and difficulty of producing flexible semi-automated weapons platforms with nuclear capability is coming down quickly.
Our military decline, with its roots in corruption and bureaucratic fossilization, will eventually intersect with the increasing capabilities of what we currently consider third-rate nations and even non-national entities. The results will be… interesting to watch, I have not doubt.