EVOLUTION OF THE US SEA-BASED NUCLEAR MISSILE DETERRENT: WARFIGHTING CAPABILITIES
Based on the findings of the report, my conclusion was that this idea was not a practical deterrent, for reasons which, at this moment, must be all too obvious. Sometime in the s, a second, but real, doomsday device, called The Dead Hand , entered the picture in the Soviet Union. Unlike Kahn's device, it was not based on radioactive cobalt, but it was self-activated and could not be stopped. Beginning in , the United States Strategic Air Command SAC kept one-third of its bombers on alert, with crews ready to take off within fifteen minutes and fly to designated targets inside the Soviet Union and destroy them with nuclear bombs in the event of a Soviet first-strike attack on the United States.
In , President John F. Kennedy increased funding for this program and raised the commitment to 50 percent of SAC aircraft. During periods of increased tension in the early s, SAC kept part of its B fleet airborne at all times, to allow an extremely fast retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union in the event of a surprise attack on the United States. This program continued until Between and , bomber wings had approximately one-third of their assigned aircraft on quick reaction ground alert and were able to take off within a few minutes.
For example, some were sent to Wright Patterson , which normally did not have Bs. During the height of the tensions between the US and the USSR in the s, two popular films were made dealing with what could go terribly wrong with the policy of keeping nuclear-bomb carrying airplanes at the ready: Strangelove [21] and Fail Safe In McNamara's formulation there was the very real danger that a nation with nuclear weapons could attempt to eliminate another nation's retaliatory forces with a surprise, devastating first strike and theoretically "win" a nuclear war relatively unharmed.
True second-strike capability could be achieved only when a nation had a guaranteed ability to fully retaliate after a first-strike attack. The United States had achieved an early form of second-strike capability by fielding continual patrols of strategic nuclear bombers, with a large number of planes always in the air, on their way to or from fail-safe points close to the borders of the Soviet Union. This meant the United States could still retaliate, even after a devastating first-strike attack. The tactic was expensive and problematic because of the high cost of keeping enough planes in the air at all times and the possibility they would be shot down by Soviet anti-aircraft missiles before reaching their targets.
In addition, as the idea of a missile gap existing between the US and the Soviet Union developed, there was increasing priority being given to ICBMs over bombers. It was only with the advent of ballistic missile submarines , starting with the George Washington class in , that a genuine survivable nuclear force became possible and a retaliatory second strike capability guaranteed. The deployment of fleets of ballistic missile submarines established a guaranteed second-strike capability because of their stealth and by the number fielded by each Cold War adversary—it was highly unlikely that all of them could be targeted and preemptively destroyed in contrast to, for example, a missile silo with a fixed location that could be targeted during a first strike.
Given their long range, high survivability and ability to carry many medium- and long-range nuclear missiles, submarines were credible and effective means for full-scale retaliation even after a massive first strike. This deterrence strategy and program has continued into the 21st century, with nuclear submarines carrying Trident II ballistic missiles as one leg of the U. Ballistic missile submarines are also operated by the navies of China, France, India and Russia. Department of Defense anticipates a continued need for a sea-based strategic nuclear force.
Navy is exploring two options. The first is a variant of the Virginia -class nuclear attack submarines. The second is a dedicated SSBN, either with a new hull or based on an overhaul of the current Ohio -class.
Had such systems been able to effectively defend against a retaliatory second strike , MAD would have been undermined. See also Strategic Defense Initiative. The multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle MIRV was another weapons system designed specifically to aid with the MAD nuclear deterrence doctrine. Since each defensive missile could be counted on to destroy only one offensive missile, making each offensive missile have, for example, three warheads as with early MIRV systems meant that three times as many defensive missiles were needed for each offensive missile.
This made defending against missile attacks more costly and difficult. One of the largest U. The multiple warheads made defense untenable with the available technology, leaving the threat of retaliatory attack as the only viable defensive option. The Soviet Union countered this threat by issuing a statement that any use of nuclear weapons tactical or otherwise against Soviet forces would be grounds for a full-scale Soviet retaliatory strike massive retaliation.
Thus it was generally assumed that any combat in Europe would end with apocalyptic conclusions. MIRVed land-based ICBMs are generally considered suitable for a first strike inherently counterforce or a counterforce second strike , due to:. Unlike a decapitation strike or a countervalue strike , a counterforce strike might result in a potentially more constrained retaliation.
If it is assumed that each side has missiles, with five warheads each, and further that each side has a 95 percent chance of neutralizing the opponent's missiles in their silos by firing two warheads at each silo, then the attacking side can reduce the enemy ICBM force from missiles to about five by firing 40 missiles with warheads, and keeping the rest of 60 missiles in reserve. MAD doctrine was modified on July 25, , with U. According to its architect, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown , "countervailing strategy" stressed that the planned response to a Soviet attack was no longer to bomb Soviet population centers and cities primarily, but first to kill the Soviet leadership, then attack military targets, in the hope of a Soviet surrender before total destruction of the Soviet Union and the United States.
This modified version of MAD was seen as a winnable nuclear war, while still maintaining the possibility of assured destruction for at least one party. This policy was further developed by the Reagan administration with the announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative SDI, nicknamed "Star Wars" , the goal of which was to develop space-based technology to destroy Soviet missiles before they reached the United States. SDI was criticized by both the Soviets and many of America's allies including Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher because, were it ever operational and effective, it would have undermined the "assured destruction" required for MAD.
If the United States had a guarantee against Soviet nuclear attacks, its critics argued, it would have first-strike capability, which would have been a politically and militarily destabilizing position.
Critics further argued that it could trigger a new arms race, this time to develop countermeasures for SDI. Despite its promise of nuclear safety, SDI was described by many of its critics including Soviet nuclear physicist and later peace activist Andrei Sakharov as being even more dangerous than MAD because of these political implications. Supporters also argued that SDI could trigger a new arms race, forcing the USSR to spend an increasing proportion of GDP on defense—something which has been claimed to have been an indirect cause of the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
Proponents of ballistic missile defense BMD argue that MAD is exceptionally dangerous in that it essentially offers a single course of action in the event of nuclear attack: The fact that nuclear proliferation has led to an increase in the number of nations in the " nuclear club ", including nations of questionable stability e.
North Korea , and that a nuclear nation might be hijacked by a despot or other person or persons who might use nuclear weapons without a sane regard for the consequences, presents a strong case for proponents of BMD who seek a policy which both protects against attack, but also does not require an escalation into what might become global nuclear war. Russia continues to have a strong public distaste for Western BMD initiatives, presumably because proprietary operative BMD systems could exceed their technical and financial resources and therefore degrade their larger military standing and sense of security in a post-MAD environment.
Russian refusal to accept invitations to participate in NATO BMD may be indicative of the lack of an alternative to MAD in current Russian war fighting strategy due to dilapidation of conventional forces after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Relations between the United States and Russia were, at least for a time, less tense than they had been with the Soviet Union. The administration of U. Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in June , claiming that the limited national missile defense system which they proposed to build was designed only to prevent nuclear blackmail by a state with limited nuclear capability and was not planned to alter the nuclear posture between Russia and the United States.
While relations have improved and an intentional nuclear exchange is more unlikely, the decay in Russian nuclear capability in the post-Cold War era may have had an effect on the continued viability of the MAD doctrine. Lieber and Press argued that the MAD era is coming to an end and that the United States is on the cusp of global nuclear primacy. However, in a follow-up article in the same publication, others criticized the analysis, including Peter Flory, the U.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, who began by writing "The essay by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press contains so many errors, on a topic of such gravity, that a Department of Defense response is required to correct the record. A situation in which the United States might actually be expected to carry out a "successful" attack is perceived as a disadvantage for both countries.
The strategic balance between the United States and Russia is becoming less stable, and the objective, technical possibility of a first strike by the United States is increasing. At a time of crisis, this instability could lead to an accidental nuclear war.
For example, if Russia feared a U. An outline of current U. Whether MAD was the officially accepted doctrine of the United States military during the Cold War is largely a matter of interpretation. The United States Air Force , for example, has retrospectively contended that it never advocated MAD as a sole strategy, and that this form of deterrence was seen as one of numerous options in U. However, according to a declassified Strategic Air Command study, U.
To continue to deter in an era of strategic nuclear equivalence, it is necessary to have nuclear as well as conventional forces such that in considering aggression against our interests any adversary would recognize that no plausible outcome would represent a victory or any plausible definition of victory.
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To this end and so as to preserve the possibility of bargaining effectively to terminate the war on acceptable terms that are as favorable as practical, if deterrence fails initially, we must be capable of fighting successfully so that the adversary would not achieve his war aims and would suffer costs that are unacceptable, or in any event greater than his gains, from having initiated an attack. At an Oxford Union debate in , debating the proposition that Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible, former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange argued "that the fear [nuclear weapons] inspire is not a justification for their existence," arguing instead that nuclear armament is irrational, morally indefensible and makes us insecure.
There is, Mr President, a quality of irrationality about nuclear weapons which does not sit well with good intentions. A system of defence serves its purpose if it guarantees the security of those it protects. A system of nuclear defence guarantees only insecurity. The means of defence terrorise as much as the threat of attack. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Prehistoric Ancient Post-classical Early modern Late modern industrial fourth-gen. Blitzkrieg Deep operation Maneuver Operational manoeuvre group.
Military recruitment Conscription Recruit training Military specialism Women in the military Children in the military Transgender people and military service Sexual harassment in the military Conscientious objection Counter recruitment. Arms industry Materiel Supply chain management. This article includes a list of references , but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations.
You won't just learn about for example how the Poseidon missile improved on the Polaris, but how the Poseidon was deployed, how it was integrated into the larger US nuclear strategy, and how it would have been affected by Soviet anti-submarine countermeasures. Probably the best review I could give is that, if Mr. Refuto were to write about the evolution of US land-based or airborne nuclear deterrent, I would buy them immediately. See all 3 reviews.
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Mutual assured destruction
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