Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications

A Primer on US Systems and Future Challenges

James J. Wirtz, Jeffrey A. Larsen, James J. Wirtz, Jeffrey A. Larsen

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781647122454
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

he first overview of US NC3 since the 1980s, Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications explores the current NC3 system and its vital role in ensuring effective deterrence, contemporary challenges posed by cyber threats, new weapons technologies, and the need to modernize the United States' Cold War–era system of systems.

PART I

ONE

DETERRENCE: THE ROLE OF NUCLEAR COMMAND, CONTROL, AND COMMUNICATIONS

James J. Wirtz

In contemporary discourse on national security, the terms strategy, deterrence, and NC3 (nuclear command, control, and communications) not only are described as things that contribute to achieving policy objectives, but they also seem to appear as policy objectives themselves. Policy documents also call for more and better strategy, deterrence, and NC3, but they rarely get down to first principles to explain how these concepts are interrelated or what makes their achievement desirable. Deterrence is in fact a type of strategy, and NC3 is a critical enabler of deterrence because it helps to produce wonderfully paradoxical effects. NC3 helps to guarantee nuclear retaliation following the total failure of the strategy of deterrence, which in turn reduces the likelihood that deterrence will fail in the first place. NC3 also enables a strategy designed to gain political-military benefits from a nuclear arsenal without actually having to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield, which is referred to as a deterrence strategy. In a sense, by ensuring that nuclear weapons can always be used, a functioning and credible NC3 system creates a situation in which political benefits can be gained from nuclear weapons without having to use nuclear weapons on some battlefield.

There is much that is paradoxical and counterintuitive when it comes to the relationships between strategy, deterrence, and NC3, but a brief discussion of each of these concepts can set the stage for a deep dive into the factors that dominate contemporary discussions of NC3 and the US National Military Command System (NMCS), which is the focus of this volume. The following section sets off by discussing how deterrence is a type of strategy that creates a rather demanding set of command, control, and communications requirements, especially when deterrence involves nuclear weapons. The chapter then turns to a discussion of the key issues that animate both theoretical and practical discourse surrounding NC3. It then briefly explores why NC3 has recently risen to the top of policy agendas and the steps that have been taken to revitalize the US nuclear deterrent in general and NC3 in particular. The chapter then turns to a survey of the challenges and potential new roles NC3 will face in the immediate future. The chapter concludes with a few observations about the relationship between NC3, deterrence, and future challenges.

DETERRENCE STRATEGY: UNPACKING CONCEPTS

Strategy is the art of using all of the resources at one’s disposal to alter the opponent’s political objectives and perceptions in a way that suits our interests.¹ Although there is a tendency to focus immediately on kinetic effects when military or national security strategy is under discussion, just about anything and everything can be employed in an orchestrated manner to alter the political perceptions of the opponent (i.e., what it believes is in its interests). For instance, diplomacy, economic sanctions or inducements, information campaigns via social media or traditional outlets, references to scientific findings, or appeals to reason, history, or equity can all be mustered to shape opinions among friends and foes alike. By providing evidence of domestic political commitment to foreign audiences, strategy can also signal that interest in some issue or region is not a passing fancy but is instead a matter of important or vital national interest. Force plays a part in this mix, but the use of force should never be an end in itself. Force should always be used to influence politics. It also should be used only after all nonkinetic tools in the strategy basket have failed to produce a satisfactory political outcome. Force should be used only as a last resort.

Deterrence is an exquisite strategy because it threatens the use of force, while not actually using force, to achieve political objectives.² In essence, the purpose of deterrence is to create a perception in the mind of the opponent that it is not in its interest to use violence to achieve its objectives, usually by promising that the costs suffered in retaliation will outweigh the benefits gained by initiating hostilities. Although the strategies used to achieve deterrence can be highly nuanced, they usually attempt to achieve several goals: prevent the outbreak of war, prevent abrupt territorial change or some other form of fait accompli, and guarantee that international change is accomplished through diplomacy or accepted legal frameworks or democratically sanctioned actions. In other words, deterrence is intended to foster peaceful change in world politics and to prevent the use of violence to achieve political objectives. Deterrence is a war-prevention strategy, despite the fact that its effectiveness is enhanced if it actually incorporates a credible capability to follow through on deterrent threats—that is, to actually fight a war. This paradox of deterrence is captured by the famous Roman adage Si vis pacem para bellum (If you want peace, prepare for war).

The outbreak of war would thus mark the complete and catastrophic failure of deterrence as a strategy. The party issuing threats would confront a situation—namely, war—that it hoped to avoid by adopting a deterrence strategy in the first place. The motto of US Strategic Air Command (SAC)—“Peace Is Our Profession”—was not some sort of cruel joke but instead reflected its deterrence mission and its goal of preventing the outbreak of nuclear war. The fact that the essence of deterrence is about war preventing, not warfighting, is something that strikes officers today as somewhat odd, given the decades spent cultivating a warfighting culture in the US military. Deterrence is a concept that is alien to officers who have found themselves in almost continuous conventional combat or various “gray zone” activities since the end of the Cold War. By contrast, the officers who manned SAC’s bombers and missile launch-control centers were not in the practice of referring to themselves as “nuclear warfighters.”

To be effective, the opponent must believe that a deterrent threat is credible in the sense that the side making the threat will actually execute the threat in the event of a failure of deterrence. Possession of capability, the material capacity to execute the threat, bolsters deterrence credibility. Nevertheless, it is the capability that remains in place after a deterrence failure—the forces that will survive after a potential attack by the opponent—that ultimately backstops the credibility of deterrent threats. The importance of the ability to retaliate after being attacked, which is often described as a “second-strike” capability, can appear counterintuitive for those grounded in conventional, not nuclear, operations. Albert Wohlstetter’s famous Project RAND study, The Delicate Balance of Terror, for instance, highlighted the vulnerability of SAC’s forward bomber bases to attack. Wohlstetter made the point that only the bombers that survived a surprise attack could play a part in deterring an opponent.³

On balance, it is harder to degrade the destructive power of deterrent threats that are based on nuclear weapons, as opposed to conventional forces, because the survival of just a few hundred nuclear weapons could inflict catastrophic damage on an opponent. Thomas Schelling called this the diplomacy of violence—nuclear deterrence can remain credible despite the fact that a country or conventional military might lie in ruins and the opponent’s military capabilities remain intact.⁴ By contrast, threats based on conventional weapons might appear “contestable” to the target in the sense that the conventional forces needed to execute a deterrent threat might be destroyed in a preemptive attack or rendered ineffective in a long attritional campaign.⁵ It makes a difference if nuclear or conventional weapons form the basis of deterrent threats, but with both types of weapons it is the forces that survive after deterrence failure that are important when the opponent assesses the capability and credibility behind deterrent threats.

The type of threat made as part of an overall deterrence strategy also influences the target’s perception of capability and the credibility of threats.⁶ Deterrence by denial strives to prevent the opponent from achieving its goals in the event of deterrence failure. It conjures up images of somehow stopping the opponent at some geographic point of attack and physically forcing a return to the status quo ante bellum. Deterrence by retaliation, on the other hand, seeks to inflict unacceptable costs should some infraction occur. The opponent might keep its ill-gotten gains, but retaliatory strikes will inflict costs out of proportion to the benefits of its initiative. Deterrence by punishment threatens to inflict pain at steady or escalating increments until the opponent abandons its objectives. In a sense, when executed, punishment threats actually turn into a form of compellence or coercion because they raise the costs of some unacceptable action until the opponent abandons its efforts.

Two types of situational awareness can also influence the effectiveness of deterrence strategies. First, those issuing deterrent threats usually want to make the target aware of so-called red lines—they need to make the opponent aware of the actions that are likely to cause a failure of deterrence, triggering the threatened retaliatory action. There is a spirited scholarly debate about drawing red lines clearly.⁷ Distinct red lines can prompt the opponent to engage in “salami tactics”—taking initiatives that gradually move closer to achieving prohibited objectives without triggering deterrent threats. By contrast, a lack of clarity might result in inadvertent activation of deterrent threats, which is in no one’s interest. Second, the side issuing deterrent threats needs to maintain sufficient situational awareness to monitor and assess potential behaviors that could possibly cross stated red lines. One might think that Information Age technologies make accomplishing this task a simple matter. Nevertheless, the deluge of data from myriad sources can make it difficult to ascertain the difference between facts on the ground and alternative realities that animate the virtual world.⁸ During crises, when time is short and the stakes are high, policymakers can find that accurate situational awareness is in short supply. For deterrence to function, however, the party that is to be deterred needs to be aware of what activity is prohibited and the party that is making deterrent threats needs to be aware if its deterrence strategy has failed.

Embracing deterrence as a strategy thus involves a good deal more than just possessing a weapons system; it also involves developing and preserving accurate situational assessments in peacetime, during crisis, and during war itself. Deterrence strategies of denial, retaliation, and punishment also carry different implications for NC3. Denial strategies create a demand for keen situational awareness and flexible targeting so that the opponent’s strategies, operations, and tactics, which are difficult to anticipate fully in advance, can be counteracted effectively once hostilities commence. Similarly, deterrence strategies based on punishment require an ability to assess ongoing events and to escalate the geographic scope or intensity of attacks, placing a premium on exquisite control of forces that themselves might be subject to nuclear attack. Deterrence also involves maintaining control of deterrent forces so they are not accidentally or inadvertently activated. So far, at least, NC3 has not allowed an accidental discharge, so to speak, of a nuclear weapon, although accidents involving nuclear weapons and associated delivery systems have occurred.⁹ Most importantly, deterrence strategies dictate that the NMCS must be available if deterrence fails, even after NC3 systems have suffered a nuclear attack. Prudence dictates that plans for positive control—executing an order to actually employ a nuclear weapon and the execution of deterrent threats—must take place in a post-nuclear-attack environment.

NC3 is thus a critical enabler of deterrence because it provides the capability necessary to execute deterrence threats. Without effective NC3, deterrence lacks credibility for the simple reason that doubts would exist about ex ante threats to retaliate should deterrence fail. Those subjected to deterrence threats understand the importance of NC3. Decapitation attacks—preemptive strikes to incapacitate leadership and destroy critical sensor and co...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Abbreviations
• Foreword by Rebecca K. C. Hersman
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Assuring Control of the Nuclear Force
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Conclusion: US NC3 at a Critical Juncture
• List of Contributors
• Index