Chapter Three
CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING NUCLEAR SAFETY
OPTIONS
What are the appropriate criteria for judging nuclear safety options?
Past studies, both inside the Department of Defense and at the nuclear laboratories, have used a fairly narrow set of criteria, focusing
on maintaining the current equilibrium between Russian and U.S.
nuclear forces.1 In their view, a nuclear safety option should be constructed to ensure that neither country gains an advantage over the
other once the option is implemented. They also place heavy emphasis on ensuring verification of the proposed measure. These
criteria are certainly essential to any evaluation of options for improving nuclear safety, but they are not the only fitting criteria. By
focusing narrowly, these studies rejected options even though they
may have had merit for reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorized nuclear use.
Our study took a different approach and used a broader set of criteria
for evaluating nuclear safety options. We adopted criteria used in
previous studies, but we also used criteria that encompass broader
issues, such as an option’s effect on U.S.-Russian relations, U.S. nonproliferation goals, and counterterrorism goals. In coming to an
overall assessment of each option, we also used the rule that no single criterion can lead to an option’s disqualification. For instance, a
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1See, for example, Thomas H. Karas, De-alerting and De-activating Strategic Nuclear
Weapons (Albuquerque, NM: Sandia National Laboratories), SAND2001-0835, April
2001; and Kathleen C. Bailey and Franklin D. Barish, “De-alerting of U.S. Nuclear
Forces: A Critical Appraisal,” Comparative Strategy, Vol. 18, January-March 1999, pp.
1–12.
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Beyond the Nuclear Shadow
nuclear safety option that greatly improves U.S.-Russian relations yet
is very difficult to verify may still be attractive—as long as it does not
significantly undermine the U.S or Russian deterrent. Nor must one
option do everything at once. Partial steps may have a significant
effect on improving the tone of U.S.-Russian relations, thereby reducing the chances of accidental nuclear use and creating the
foundation for nuclear safety initiatives.
In our view, the primary goal should always be kept in mind:
Strengthen nuclear safety by reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorized launch of nuclear weapons and improving U.S.-Russian
relations while simultaneously preserving mutual deterrence at a
level appropriate to current needs. In line with this goal, we used the
following eight criteria to evaluate nuclear safety options:
1. Contribution to reducing the risk of nuclear use. How does the option specifically reduce the risk of nuclear use? What contributing
factor(s) does the option address? Does it have a major or minor
positive (or negative) effect on the potential for future nuclear
use? For example, does it increase the amount of time that
national leaders would have to decide if a detected event is an attack? Does it improve the survivability of nuclear forces? This criterion also tries to qualitatively capture how much a particular
option will improve nuclear safety. For example, how much additional time does the option provide? What additional pieces of information might be provided to national decisionmakers during
these critical minutes or hours?
2. Effect on current U.S. strategies and targeting plans. What is the
option’s effect on current U.S. strategies and targeting plans?
Would nuclear strategies and targeting plans need to be altered or
modified if the option were implemented?
3. Effect on U.S.-Russian political relations. Does the option enhance
the level of confidence and trust in the U.S.-Russian relationship?
Does it diminish the importance of nuclear weapons in the relationship?
4. Effect on other major international actors (China, Europe, etc.).
How does the option affect other major international actors? Does
it increase, have no effect on, or decrease the probability of nuclear use—deliberate or accidental—by these other actors? Will
Criteria for Evaluating Nuclear Safety Options
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participation by other actors enhance or detract from the option’s
effect on the potential for future nuclear use?
5. Effect on prospects for achieving nonproliferation and counterterrorism goals. Does the option enhance or detract from efforts by
the United States to achieve its nonproliferation and counterterrorism policy goals? Will nuclear weapons in Russia and the
United States be more secure or less secure if the option is implemented?
6. Feasibility and affordability. Is implementation of the option
technically feasible? What effect will its implementation have on
military operations? How expensive will implementation be? Are
any of these factors great enough to discourage U.S. or Russian
participation?
7. Effect on incentive to strike first with nuclear weapons. Does the
option strengthen or weaken first-strike stability? After the option
is implemented, will nuclear forces be more survivable or less
survivable than they are today? In a crisis, does one country or the
other gain a significant advantage if there is a race to rearm?
8. Ability to monitor or verify implementation of the option and effect
of cheating. How easily can the option’s implementation be monitored or verified? If cheating by either country occurs, how will it
affect nuclear stability? Will cheating let the offending nation gain
the ability to launch a disarming first strike?
In the next chapter, we use these eight criteria to evaluate a range of
options for improving nuclear safety.