This research paper has been commissioned by the International Commission on Nuclear
Non-proliferation and Disarmament, but reflects the views of the author and should not be
construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Commission.
EXTENDED DETERRENCE ON THE WAY TO A
NUCLEAR-FREE WORLD
George Perkovich
May 2009
Executive Summary
The prospect that the United States might seriously seek a world without nuclear weapons
raises concern in some quarters that the U.S. will be unwilling or unable to deter threats to its
allies and that one or more of these states would choose to build its own nuclear deterrent.
Extended deterrence is too important to be treated carelessly. Advocates of nuclear
disarmament should seriously address how the disarmament process can serve, and not
undermine, the security interests of states that now rely on guarantees from the U.S.
Opponents of nuclear abolition, on the other hand, should not obscure their resistance to the
goal by exaggerating the difficulties of preserving extended deterrence.
In any case, hand-wringing over extended deterrence in a nuclear-weapon-free world is a bit
premature. The world is close to eliminating nuclear weapons. As long as the U.S. has nuclear
weapons and alliance commitments, the US deterrent will inherently have a nuclear
component. On the other hand, a willingness to eliminate nuclear weapons could help reduce
the threats that motivate extended nuclear deterrence in the first place.
In a world where the US and others have nuclear weapons, the central questions are: what are
the threats that the U.S. and its allies must deter, and how should they deter them? The
answers to these questions, suggest that the nuclear component in extended deterrence is
exaggerated today in ways that obscure the more pressing questions and challenges of
building security in Eurasia and East Asia. This does not mean that the need to help allies
deter adversaries has disappeared. It merely means that the role of nuclear weapons in
extended deterrence has shrunk much more radically than many people assume. The need to
address the central questions co-operatively with key allies cannot be over-emphasized.
In Europe, NATO states do not threaten each other. To the extent that the original members of
NATO face “hard” security threats on their territories, terrorism is the most feasible form. If
terrorism cannot be deterred, but instead must be prevented and/or defeated, then NATObased nuclear weapons are irrelevant for this purpose. If terrorism can be deterred, NATObased nuclear weapons are not politically, strategically or tactically necessary or useful.
In East Asia, North Korea poses nuclear threats to South Korea and Japan. As long as these
threats remain, the U.S. will continue to extend nuclear deterrence to its allies. Dealing with
China’s growing power is extraordinarily perplexing. Although China has been self-restrained
in wielding military power in recent decades, it is steadily building up its armed forces. But
the type of threat it might represent has historically not been deterred by nuclear weapons.
In discussing the Middle East, the concept of extending nuclear deterrence to Iran’s neighbors
now is both premature and counterproductive. Conventional deterrence and missile defenses
should be emphasized instead.
2
An over-arching issue in each region is that of first-use and its relation to deterrence. In each
of the regions, the sources of likely threat do not enjoy conventional (or CBW) superiority
over the US. First use therefore is realistically germane only to deter nuclear threats. But
breaking the taboo against using nuclear weapons could cause a major political and moral
backlash that would undermine the strategic position of the U.S., including within allied
societies. Using nuclear weapons in retaliation would be much more credible—though the US
would still need to consider whether it would be necessary or wise to do so.
It also needs to be borne in mind that there was no halcyon day of extended nuclear
deterrence. There has always been a tension in it. A question often asked, for example, is: will
the U.S. be willing to risk war, including nuclear war against U.S. forces or homeland, in
order to defend its allies? Mutual vulnerability (deterrence) can raise such concerns, but there
is no way around the uncomfortable reality that mutual vulnerability is a fact of life once a
potential adversary has survivable nuclear forces.
Equally, there may be a “Fear of Entrapment” where allies worry that the US will get in a
fight with another state, and the allies will get caught in the middle. In addition, Americans
can worry that an ally might provoke a conflict with another state, or not try hard enough to
avoid one, and the US would then be trapped in a no-win position of looking like it is
abandoning an ally or joining a fight it considers to be unnecessary.
The underlying difficulty is that nuclear weapons are, or are perceived to be, inherently
weapons of indiscriminate and disproportionate destruction. They are self-deterring for actors
who depend upon public support from their own populations, their allies, and broader
international society. In fact, the taboo against using nuclear weapons has become so strong
that the only threat against which it is justifiable and therefore credible to use these weapons
is one where the survival of the U.S. or an ally is clearly jeopardized. Yet, with the possible
exception of North Korea in relation to Japan or South Korea, no state poses a realistic threat
to the national survival of U.S. allies in Europe or East Asia.
Overestimation of the utility of nuclear weapons is reflected in fears that extended deterrence
will be lost if the U.S. (with Russia) reduces its nuclear arsenal to 1,000 weapons. But under
what scenario is it conceivable that the U.S. would use 1,000 (or 100) nuclear weapons
against countries posing a potential threat?
There are also operational tensions in extended deterrence—within NATO, for example,
members have varying views on the nuclear option and its visibility. But few are prepared to
make their views known publicly. In Japan, unlike in Europe, there has long been insistence
that the U.S. not base nuclear weapons there. Yet some Japanese officials also say privately to
US officials that Japan wants the extended deterrent to be “visible.”
The argument can nevertheless be made that visible deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons on
the territory of other states might actually exacerbate instability in crises. Such forward
deployed weapons could provide incentives (or pressure) for an adversary to strike these
weapons early in a conflict to prevent their first use.
In today’s world, where the threat is low of the type of action which might warrant a nuclear
response, it is unreasonable not to focus on abating underlying security dilemmas and
reducing threats rather than concentrating on strengthening nuclear deterrence. For credible
deterrence, the focus should be on non-nuclear capabilities. To act otherwise is to miss
opportunities to improve security relationships in those regions. Such improvements are
desirable in their own right and can help create conditions for progress toward a world
without nuclear weapons.
3
Introduction
The prospect that the United States might seriously seek a world without nuclear
weapons elicits alarm in some quarters that the U.S. will become unwilling or unable
to deter threats to its allies. According to this line of worry, U.S. interest in global
abolition could cause such a loss of security confidence in NATO states, Japan, South
Korea and Taiwan that one or more of these states would choose to build its own
nuclear deterrent.
Much of this fretting over extended nuclear deterrence comes from former American
defense officials who are adamantly opposed to the goal of eliminating all nuclear
weapons. Highlighting the extended-deterrence concerns of Japan and other allies is
an effective argument. Rather than saying, “we can’t imagine life without the bomb,
don’t take away our nuclear weapons,” it is more persuasive to say, “our allies will be
scared and devastated if we take away the bombs with which we protect them.”
Extended deterrence is too important to be treated carelessly. Advocates of pursuing
nuclear abolition should seriously address how the disarmament process can serve,
and not undermine, the security interests of states that now rely on guarantees from
the U.S. Opponents of nuclear abolition, on the other hand, should not obscure their a
priori resistance to the goal by exaggerating the difficulties of preserving extended
deterrence in a world where all states would be eliminating their nuclear arsenals. The
political-security relationships that would be required to make abolition feasible
would also change what is required to extend deterrence to U.S. allies.
Hand-wringing over extended deterrence in a nuclear-weapon-free world is a
bit premature. Neither the U.S. nor the wider world is close to eliminating all nuclear
weapons. We are not close to zero in terms of numbers of weapons or, more
importantly, in terms of the political-security relations that would be required to get us
close to zero. As long as anyone else has nuclear weapons, the U.S. will too. If the
U.S. were to eliminate its nuclear arsenal, it would do so only if and when all others
did the same. There is not a question of exposing allies to other actors’ nuclear
weapons.1
Moreover, as long as the U.S. has nuclear weapons, and as long as it has alliance
commitments, the deterrent that the U.S. provides will inherently have a nuclear
component. Whatever the declaratory policy of the U.S. is, as long as the U.S. has any
nuclear weapons, an adversary threatening an American ally would have to calculate
that the U.S. could use these weapons in fulfilling its alliance commitments. Whether
the U.S. has 5,000 nuclear weapons or 500, if a large share of these weapons can
survive an adversary’s first strike and be used to retaliate, the adversary would be
committing national suicide if it undertook aggression that would trigger a U.S.
nuclear response.
Therefore, the question is not whether the U.S. is abandoning or would abandon
extended nuclear deterrence in a world when it and others have nuclear weapons. The
1
On the other hand, as long as the U.S., Russia, China et al have nuclear weapons, others will insist on
having them too, and these weapons can threaten U.S. allies. Being willing to eliminate nuclear
weapons can help reduce the threats that motivate extended nuclear deterrence in the first place.
4
questions are: what are the threats that the U.S. and its allies must deter, and how
should they deter them? Can relations between Russia and its NATO neighbors, for
example, be made more stable and cooperative? What sort of U.S. nuclear policy
would make stability and cooperation more, or less, likely? In East Asia, what level of
nuclear forces and declaratory doctrine best contributes to North Korea’s
denuclearization and, in the meantime, non-aggression? What policies would be most
likely to facilitate stability and cooperation between China and its neighbors?
These questions go to the heart of what is a genuine challenge to reassure allies about
extended deterrence. The answers to these questions, which this paper will explore,
suggest that the nuclear component in extended deterrence is exaggerated today in
ways that obscure the more pressing questions and challenges of building security in
Eurasia and East Asia. Nuclear weapons simply are not as useable as the authors of
nuclear doctrine pretended in the Cold War. American presidents and military leaders
have come to realize this. As Henry Kissinger wrote recently in the International
Herald Tribune, “The basic dilemma of the nuclear age has been with us since
Hiroshima: how to bring the destructiveness of modern weapons into some moral or
political relationship with the objectives that are being pursued. Any use of nuclear
weapons is certain to involve a level of casualties and devastation out of proportion to
foreseeable foreign-policy objectives. Efforts to develop a more nuanced application
have never succeeded, from the doctrine of a geographically limited nuclear war in
the 1950s and 1960s to the ‘mutual assured destruction’ theory of general nuclear war
in the 1970s.” This does not mean that the need to help allies deter adversaries has
disappeared. It merely means that the role of nuclear weapons in extended deterrence
has shrunk much more radically than many people assume.
The Questions That Should Be Asked
The future of extended deterrence should be addressed by governments, experts, and
civil society in the U.S. and the states to which security guarantees are provided. It
makes sense to do this on a regional basis and to engage in deliberations with the
states that are to be deterred, when possible. There are two regions where the U.S. has
formal alliance commitments to extend deterrence, including nuclear deterrence:
NATO Europe, and Japan, South Korea, Australia (and perhaps Taiwan) in East Asia.
Less formally, the U.S. has security relationships with Israel and Gulf Cooperation
Council states which could evolve into clearer extended deterrence commitments if
Iran acquires nuclear weapons.
In each of these regions, we need to ask the following questions:

What are the threats to each covered country?

What are the probabilities and severities of various threats?

What means exist to deter or defeat these threats?

Which means should be preferred from a cost/benefit analysis?

Which threats could only be deterred/defeated with nuclear weapons?
For example, are nuclear weapons necessary to deter large-scale conventional
military aggression against each ally?

What level of aggression would justify and make credible the first-use
of U.S. nuclear weapons?
5

Are nuclear weapons necessary to deter/retaliate against chemical
and/or biological weapons threats against allies? Again, how plausible are
such threats? Would the necessity and credibility of nuclear responses depend
on the scale of the supposed attack?

For such threats, are there substitute means that could be developed to
deter or defeat adversaries?

Most importantly, are there ways to reduce these threats or resolve
them entirely, as this is the most benign way to achieve security?
To ask these questions is to see the decreasing relevance of nuclear weapons today (as
many U.S. military leaders recognize).
In Europe, NATO states do not threaten each other. To the extent that the original
members of NATO face “hard” security threats on their territories, terrorism is the
most feasible form.
If terrorism cannot be deterred, but instead must be prevented and/or defeated, then
NATO-based nuclear weapons are irrelevant for this purpose too. If terrorism can be
deterred, NATO-based nuclear weapons are not politically, strategically or tactically
necessary or useful for this purpose. The military challenge in such cases would be to
locate the terrorist threat with enough precision and certainty to justify attacks on it.
The burden of proof would be much higher if nuclear weapon use were contemplated:
the consequences of relying on mistaken intelligence to justify a nuclear strike would
be politically and morally grave, especially if the terrorists were located near civilian
populations. Moreover, terrorists would be operating within a state whose complicity
could be uncertain. The U.S. would then be conducting nuclear strikes on another
state which would raise exceptionally difficult political, strategic and moral issues. If
precise, high-confidence intelligence did exist, then presumably non-nuclear means
could be used to interdict targets. Some experts advocate deploying conventional
weapons atop U.S. long-range ballistic missiles for timely execution of such missions.
Finally, if the problems associated with using nuclear weapons against terrorists were
resolved, the U.S., for operational reasons, would not use NATO-based aircraftdelivered bombs for this mission.
An Iran with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles effective at targeting Western
Europe could in future pose a threat for which nuclear weapons could be a reasonable
deterrent. Yet, were Iran to acquire such capabilities, the U.K., France and the U.S.
would retain missile-based nuclear arsenals to deter Tehran, and NATO-based airdelivered weapons would not be the instrument of choice.
Nuclear weapons are the only way Russia could threaten Western European territory,
given the state of Russian conventional forces. Yet there is no reason to think that
Russia would be interested in waging this kind of war against Western Europe, given
the legacies of World War I and II, the superiority of NATO conventional
capabilities, and Russian dependence on revenues from gas sales to Europe.
Moreover, the U.K., France and the U.S. would retain survivable sea-based deterrents
against this contingency as long as Russia retains a nuclear arsenal.
Western European dependence on Russian natural gas constitutes both an economic
and “soft” security vulnerability that is more clear and present than military threats
6
from Russia. NATO-based nuclear weapons are irrelevant in this domain. There is no
military way to ensure uninterrupted supply of Russian energy to the West. Nor is it in
Russia’s interest to be known as an unreliable or hostile supplier.
The former Warsaw Pact and Soviet states now in NATO are more exposed to
Russian coercion. Russia has conventional military superiority over these states which
are located near it and Russia probably would be more willing to use hard power
against them than it is against Western European states. NATO collectively has the
military resources to deter and stymie potential Russian aggression against the new
NATO states. The question, as discussed below, is under what circumstances NATO
would have the political will to confront Russia on behalf of the new members. And
would this resolve be greater or weaker in a world without nuclear weapons?
Estonia in 2007 experienced a major cyber attack from computers based in Russia.
This attack materially and psychologically harmed Estonia in serious ways. Yet, even
if the attack could have been attributed to the Russian state with high confidence, it is
nearly impossible to imagine NATO entering into a conflict with the willingness to
escalate to possible use of nuclear weapons. Similarly, in 2008, Russian entities
curtailed supply of natural gas through Ukraine to NATO member states. This, too,
materially undermined the well-being of affected states. But, even if the Russian state
could have been justly held to blame (despite Russian insistence that its contracts
were being violated by Ukrainian entities), NATO military force, including nuclear
weapons, would not have been feasibly and effectively mobilized to resolve the issue.
Georgia, not a NATO member, lost a conflict with Russia in 2008, alarming NATO
states and Ukraine as a result. As Human Rights Watch and others have reported, it is
not exactly clear who started the shooting. If Georgia had been a member of NATO, it
is not self-evident that NATO would have felt justified and obligated to enter the
conflict militarily. Had NATO been willing to do so, it is inconceivable that the
alliance would have reached consensus on invoking nuclear threats to deter escalation
of the conflict or to end it. This situation raises thought-provoking questions regarding
the future security of Eurasia and NATO-Russian relations, including the practice of
extended deterrence broadly defined. These questions deserve full exploration. The
core issues, however, have much to do with politics and conventional military
balances, arms control and confidence-building. This challenge has little to do with
extended nuclear deterrence. Given political realities in NATO societies, it is
extremely difficult to envision consensus on running risks of nuclear war over
conflicts of this sort.
In East Asia, the situation is no less complicated. As discussed below, North Korea
poses nuclear threats to South Korea and Japan. As long as these threats remain, the
U.S. will continue to extend nuclear deterrence to its allies. Washington, Tokyo and
Seoul must devote new effort to cooperatively devise policies to contain and deter
Pyongyang and to try to eliminate its nuclear weapon capabilities and their export. In
the former category should be included enhancements in theater missile defenses and
combined U.S.-Japanese ground-strike capabilities to negate possible North Korean
missile threats. While retaining nuclear deterrence, allies should realistically examine
whether nuclear weapons are necessary or would be feasibly used to destroy the North
Korean government and Army. Potential targets of U.S. nuclear attacks on North
Korea presumably would include Pyongyang and other heavily populated areas (or
7
areas from which fall out would affect South Korea). Would it be just and therefore
credible to hold elements of the North Korean civilian population at risk of nuclear
destruction for the acts of a government for which that population is not responsible?
If the North Korean people are victims of their own government, wouldn’t they be
doubly victimized by U.S. nuclear attacks on them? Even if U.S. lawyers, who are
involved in reviewing U.S. military operations, approved nuclear attacks that would
harm large numbers of North Korean civilians, would South Koreans and others
whose political support the United States needs for its larger purposes agree,
especially given fear of radioactive fallout?
Dealing with China’s growing power—economic, political and military—is
extraordinarily perplexing. In recent decades China has been self-restrained in
wielding military power. Yet, China is steadily building up its armed forces. It also
has developed 21st century instruments such as cyber-disruption capabilities. Focusing
on Japan, how realistic is it to envision Chinese military aggression against the
Japanese mainland or Japanese naval forces, especially given the U.S.-Japan alliance
in a world with or without nuclear weapons? China could be more tempted to use
force to “win” its claims over islands and resources in the South China Sea, but as
discussed below, military action of this sort has not been deterred historically by
nuclear weapons. Were China to mount coercive pressure against Japan, wouldn’t
Beijing be more likely to use more subtle means, including computer-based
instruments, that would be less likely to escalate to conventional military or nuclear
conflict? The point here is not to dismiss the potential of military conflict, but rather
to warn against focusing on less likely threats at the expense of dedicating adequate
effort and resources to deal with the more likely.
In this vein, Japan’s overall security interests could be most realistically “threatened”
by Chinese competition in procuring energy resources and other commodities, and by
China’s relative accretion of economic power, including in finance and exports. Such
developments can threaten Japan’s relative power, and in the case of South China Sea
disputes, resource competition could have a military expression. But it is not evident
how relevant extended nuclear deterrence would be to contain the growth of China’s
overall power or channel it.
Issues arising from extended deterrence in Europe and East Asia are discussed more
fully below. Here I want to touch on the question of extended nuclear deterrence in
the Middle East. I believe that discussing extending nuclear deterrence to Iran’s
neighbors now is both premature and counterproductive. Conventional deterrence and
missile defenses should be emphasized instead. For the U.S. to talk now about
extending nuclear deterrence against Iran is to strengthen Iran’s position. It would
make much of the rest of the world more sympathetic to Iran’s refusal to cease
uranium enrichment. It would foster the argument heard in many places— though not
in Iran—that “of course Iran needs nuclear weapons, because the U.S. has these
weapons and is threatening Iran.” Rather than give excuses for Iran to seek nuclear
weapons and for others not to exert pressure on it to curtail suspect activities, it is
wiser at this time to publicly reduce the salience of U.S. nuclear weapons.
In each region, including the Middle East, one cannot overemphasize the need to
address the questions listed above co-operatively with key allies. Process matters
enormously. For the U.S. to tell allies what it’s going to do is neither reassuring nor
8
conducive to increasing allies’ self-sufficiency. More patience and resources are
needed to cooperatively assess threats and devise responses with allies.
Arching over the extended deterrence questions in each region is the issue of first-use.
The goal of nuclear deterrence is to prevent adversaries and, therefore, the United
States itself from initiating use of these singularly destructive weapons. The threat of
first-use sometimes (often?) appears most useful to deter others because waiting to go
second—to retaliate—may be militarily disadvantageous and implies a failure of
deterrence in the first place. During the Cold War, the U.S. and its allies posited firstuse as possibly necessary to deter conventional aggression by massive Soviet forces.
Today, however, the adversaries to be deterred—Russia in Europe, China or North
Korea in East Asia—do not enjoy conventional superiority over the U.S. and its allies.
Nor do potential adversaries pose chemical and biological weapons threats of a
probability and scale that would either necessitate or justify first use of nuclear
weapons. First use therefore is realistically germane only to deter nuclear threats.
Problems arise here, however, because breaking the taboo against using nuclear
weapons could cause major political and moral backlash that would undermine the
strategic position of the U.S., including within allied societies. As discussed further
below, this is a major reason why U.S. leaders elected not to use nuclear weapons in
Korea, Vietnam (in 1954 and the 1960s), Cuba (1962), Iraq and other crises and
conflicts. These inhibitions are even stronger in a world where the U.S. and its allies
have the means to deploy non-nuclear capabilities to defeat aggressors.
Using nuclear weapons in retaliation would be much more credible. Were a NATO
ally or Japan, South Korea, Australia or Taiwan to be attacked with nuclear weapons,
it would be regarded as first nuclear use against the U.S., as treaties commit the U.S.
to treat attacks on allies as attacks upon itself. Indeed, the U.S. and other nuclearweapon-state parties to the NPT have made security guarantees to non-nuclearweapon states under the treaty that they would come to such states’ assistance if they
were threatened with nuclear attack. U.S. retaliation in such cases should not be seen
as first use by the U.S. Of course, although the U.S. would be justified to undertake
retaliatory strikes, it would still consider whether it would be necessary or wise to do
so. In deciding this, many questions regarding how to terminate the conflict at the
lowest possible level of escalation would be weighed. Just war and other legal
doctrines would be considered by U.S. leaders. Allies and potential adversaries could
guess that the U.S. would be less likely to retaliate if its own territory were not
attacked by nuclear weapons, but the credibility and, therefore, the deterrent potency
of U.S. nuclear use would be higher than under scenarios positing first use by the U.S.
History’s Lessons
It is important to recall history in exploring security issues with allies and the
relevance of extended nuclear deterrence to reducing or preventing or defeating
threats. There was no halcyon day of extended nuclear deterrence. There has always
been a conflict, a tension in extended nuclear deterrence.
South Koreans describe the tension cogently. On the one hand, there is a “Fear of
Abandonment” (FoA): will the U.S. be willing to risk war, including nuclear war
against U.S. forces or homeland, in order to defend its allies? Fear of abandonment is
reflected in old Cold-War sayings such as “the U.S. will not risk New York to save
9
Paris,” or more recently, “the U.S. will not risk Los Angeles to save Taiwan.” Some
Americans now say that Japan will feel abandoned if the U.S. accepts a relationship of
mutual vulnerability with China. According to this view, if the U.S. seeks arms
control agreements with Beijing, rather than seeking offensive and defensive
capabilities to negate China’s deterrent, Japan would conclude that the U.S. would not
be willing to come to Japan’s defense in a confrontation with China. Some people
assert this to criticize the idea of U.S. leadership in seeking a world without nuclear
weapons.
Such views overlook a central fact of the nuclear revolution: once an adversary can
make a fraction of its nuclear arsenal invulnerable, either by making it mobile and
difficult to pre-emptively destroy, or by being able to launch counter-strikes upon
warning of attack, mutual vulnerability becomes a fact of life. National ballistic
missile defenses in theory could protect against counter-strikes, but the necessary
technology has not yet been demonstrated in realistic conditions. Also, it is much
cheaper and easier for an adversary to develop and deploy more offensive forces to
overwhelm defenses. Attempts to escape mutual deterrence exacerbate instability and
stimulate costly arms racing without changing the fundamental deterrent relationship.
This is why the U.S. and the USSR in 1972 agreed on the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. Mutual vulnerability (deterrence)
can raise concerns that one’s protector (the United States) might “abandon” one rather
than fight a nuclear war in one’s behalf, but there is no way around this uncomfortable
reality of the nuclear revolution once a potential adversary has survivable nuclear
forces.
On the other hand, there is a “Fear of Entrapment” (FoE). Allies worry that the U.S.
will get in a fight with North Korea or China, or Russia in Europe, and the allies will
get caught in the middle. This fear was strong in South Korea during the first term of
the Bush Administration when the strategy of regime change and preventive war
against the “Axis of Evil” raised the potential for war between the U.S. and North
Korea. Europeans felt similar fears of entrapment in the early years of the Reagan
Administration when the U.S. was deploying new intermediate-range ballistic
missiles in Europe and President Reagan was calling the Soviet Union an “evil
empire.”
Fears of abandonment and fears of entrapment are reasonable. U.S. allies depend
heavily on it to manage nuclear weapons judiciously on their behalf. The U.S. is a
democracy whose government and policies change frequently. It has a long history of
intervening militarily in other states, sometimes without the support of the United
Nations or many of its allies. The United States also has a Congress and a public that
are not aware of the extent of its commitments to defend allies in Asia. Thus, even if
U.S. defense and foreign policy elites understand the country’s commitments to
others, and the risks that may be taken to maintain those commitments in a crisis or
war, the president’s political capacity to act is not automatic.
Risks and doubts run the opposite direction, too. Americans can worry that an ally
might provoke a conflict with another state, or not try hard enough to avoid one, and
the U.S. would then be trapped in a no-win position of looking like it is abandoning
an ally or joining a fight it considers to be unnecessary. The stability and behavior of
the Georgian and Ukrainian governments today, for example, would make it difficult
10
for the U.S. and other NATO states to make treaty commitments to defend them. The
weight of these fears of alliance is greatest when the shadow of nuclear weapons
appears.
A few historical cases illustrate these difficulties. In the Korean War, Truman and
then Eisenhower made threats to use nuclear weapons to deter China from entering
the war. China did not possess nuclear weapons, so the U.S. had a nuclear monopoly
in the theater of combat. (Russia had a quite small nuclear arsenal and was unlikely to
enter the Korean war and risk a nuclear exchange it would lose). In both cases, close
allies, particularly the United Kingdom intervened directly with the president to urge
an end to making nuclear threats. As David G. Coleman and Joseph M. Siracusa
record in Real-World Nuclear Deterrence, “Even Winston Churchill, not known to be
timid with nuclear bluster, expressed his outright opposition to the American use of
atomic weapons against Beijing. As Eisenhower recounted the exchange, Churchill
emphasized that Britain ‘was a small crowded island; one good nuclear bombing
could destroy it, and recklessness might provoke such a catastrophe.”2 Eisenhower
later told the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that “‘nothing would so upset
the whole world as an announcement by the United States of a decision to use these
weapons.”3
When French forces were surrounded in Dienbienphu in 1954, top U.S. leaders
considered using nuclear weapons to destroy the Viet Minh forces, or to threaten to do
so in order to compel the Viet Minh to withdraw. But U.S. officials concluded that
leaking the possibility of using nuclear weapons to help the French would prompt “a
great hue and cry throughout the parliaments of the free world. ”4 Fear that the U.S.
might use nuclear weapons would advantage Russia politically and undermine the
West’s strategic position.
A similar political dynamic probably exists today in Europe and East Asia, especially
as China espouses a clear no-first-use policy. If the U.S. or one of its allies invoked
nuclear weapons to deter Chinese action, while China repeated its no-first-use pledge,
public pressure would be directed against the U.S. for entrapping others in a potential
nuclear war. Reflecting on this problem in 1954, Eisenhower concluded: “to attempt
to educate public opinion now on the weapons that might have to be used in war
might produce a very great strain on our alliances.”5
The underlying difficulty, of course, is that nuclear weapons are, or are perceived to
be, inherently weapons of indiscriminate and disproportionate destruction. They are
self-deterring for actors who depend upon public support from their own populations,
their allies, and broader international society. In President Truman’s words, “It is a
terrible weapon and it should not be used on innocent men, women and children who
have nothing whatever to do with this military aggression. That happens when it is
used.”6 (Recall that Truman based this judgment on the effects of 15 kiloton fission
2
David G. Coleman and Joseph M. Siracusa, Real-World Nuclear Deterrence: The Making of
International Strategy (Praeger Security International, 2006), p. 53.
3
John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries Into the History of the Cold War (Oxford University
Press, 1987), p. 127.
4
Ibid., p. 130.
5
Ibid., p. 132.
6
Ibid., p. 118.
11
weapons which are very low-yield by today’s standards.) Eisenhower recognized a
more specific problem with extended nuclear deterrence. The types of conflict most
likely to affect the security of foreign allies were not of a clarity and scale that would
justify use of nuclear weapons in retaliation. “In many cases,” Eisenhower noted,
“aggression consists of subversion or civil war in a country rather than an overt attack
on that country. In such cases it is difficult for us to know whom to retaliate against.”7
Paul Nitze, in NSC–68 identified the tension between the destructiveness and
psychological impact of nuclear weapons, on one hand, and the scale of likely
conflicts in the post-World War II era on the other hand: “‘The threat now is
‘piecemeal aggression,’ conducted on the assumption of ‘our unwillingess to engage
in atomic war unless we are directly attacked.’”8 John Foster Dulles, also no dove,
concluded after being involved in deliberations on using nuclear weapons in Korea,
Vietnam and the Taiwan Straits crises, that using nuclear weapons in many instances
“would surely cost us our allies” and “we’d be finished as far as present-day world
opinion was concerned.”9 Dulles recognized that “terrible repercussions” would
follow if “we had recourse to the use of nuclear weapons against the colored peoples
of Asia.”10 Samuel Cohen, a U.S. nuclear weapon designer who exerted great effort
during the Vietnam War to persuade Pentagon officials to use nuclear weapons
against the Vietcong, concluded that regardless of theoretical military utility,
American officials were not interested. “I realized,” Cohen writes, “that as long as a
nuclear explosive was used in anger, US policy held the type of explosive and
geographical location of detonation to be absolutely irrelevant. The cardinal point was
that it was the act of detonating the explosive in anger that was a political taboo.”11
The reality today is that the taboo against using nuclear weapons has become so
strong, especially in democracies, that the only threat against which it is justifiable
and therefore credible to use these weapons is one where the survival of the U.S. or an
ally is clearly jeopardized. Yet, with the possible exception of North Korea whose
leadership could be imagined to use nuclear weapons against Japan or South Korea if
its own survival were threatened, no other state poses a realistic threat to the national
survival of U.S. allies in Europe or East Asia. Russia does not have the intention or
capability to sustain an invasion of the new NATO states, let alone threaten their
survival. Russia could destroy any state with its nuclear weapons, but because this,
more than any other action, would practically guarantee nuclear retaliation, Russia
would not run the risk. There is simply nothing important enough that Russia would
want in any of the NATO states to merit such risk taking. China has no interest and
inadequate capabilities to take mainland Japanese territory or otherwise threaten it
militarily. It might pose military threats to Japanese positions regarding southern
islands, but the U.S. and China are not going to wage nuclear war over such islands,
and Japanese officials and public cannot realistically expect nuclear deterrence to
operate here. Beijing does continue to increase its capabilities to deter Taiwan from
declaring independence and the U.S. from defending Taiwan in such a scenario, but
the surety of U.S. security assurances to Taiwan would be greater, not less, if neither
China nor the U.S. possessed nuclear weapons. For the foreseeable future China
would be highly unlikely to use nuclear weapons on Taiwanese targets, as the Chinese
7
Ibid., p. 133.
Ibid., p. 114.
9
Quoted in Nina Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo (Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 173
10
Ibid.
11
Cohen quoted in Nina Tannewald, ibib., p. 213.
8
12
goal is to integrate Taiwanese into China, not to kill them. China would wish to deter
U.S. intervention by threatening the American fleet, perhaps with nuclear weapons,
and then deterring U.S. escalation against the Chinese homeland, by holding U.S.
cities at risk. But the trigger of nuclear use in these scenarios would be a move by
Taiwan to achieve independence. The U.S. has no obligation to fight for Taiwanese
independence if China has not committed aggression against Taiwan first.
If history shows the very limited practical utility of extended nuclear deterrence, as
distinct from extended conventional deterrence, history also has evolved in ways that
should make it easier to manage extended deterrence today than it was in the past. As
Michael Green and Katsuhisa Furukawa write, “the Japanese public’s suspicion about
the credibility of the U.S. extended deterrent was far higher during the Cold War than
it is today, even after North Korea’s nuclear test.”12 In a May 1969 Mainichi Shimbun
poll, 35 percent of respondents said U.S. nuclear weapons would protect Japan, while
24 percent said “no,” and 29 percent said that U.S. nuclear weapons would endanger
Japan. In another poll in 1969, 32 percent predicted that Japan would possess nuclear
weapons in the next decade. Opinion polls today show a much higher level of
confidence in the credibility of the U.S. commitment to defend Japan. In a December
2006 Yomiuri Shimbun poll, 71 percent predicted that the U.S. would help Japan
militarily if Japan should come under armed attack by another country.13
Looking ahead, Japanese public opinion could become less confident as China’s
overall power continues to grow. But China appears to understand that the best and
safest way for it to gain and exercise influence is through economic growth and soft
power projection in Southeast Asia. Territorial aggrandizement by military means is
unnecessary, risky, and disadvantageous compared to other ways for China to get
what it wants. Nuclear deterrence, whether extended by the U.S. or held directly
someday by Japan, is only viable against military threats of a scale that would justify
using nuclear weapons. It is not credible against economic and soft power “threats” or
small-scale aggression. To the extent that China could threaten Japanese positions
relating to southern islands, Japan and the U.S. should concentrate on maintaining
superiority of conventional forces that could defeat local Chinese territorial
aggrandizement. Meanwhile, even under the most ambitious nuclear arms reduction
scenarios currently envisioned, the U.S. would retain more than enough survivable
strategic nuclear weapons to deter China, North Korea or Russia from the sorts of
action that nuclear weapons can credibly deter.
Michael J. Green and Katsuhisa Furukawa, “Japan: New Nuclear Realism,” in Muthiah Alagappa
ed., The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21 st Century Asia (Stanford University Press,
2008), p. 359.
13
Ibid.
12
13
Overestimating The Extended Deterrent Utility of Nuclear Weapons
These observations may seem obvious. Yet, current concerns over extended nuclear
deterrence suggest that there is room for repetition and further public debate. The
basic problem, as suggested above, is twofold. First, there is an overestimation of the
utility of nuclear weapons in the sorts of scenarios that would most probably confront
the U.S. and its allies. Second, there is an under-appreciation of the need for closer
political–security cooperation with these same allies regarding policies and
capabilities that are more pertinent and less symbolic than nuclear weapons.
Overestimation of the utility of nuclear weapons is reflected in fears that extended
deterrence will be lost if the U.S. (with Russia) reduces its nuclear arsenal to 1,000
weapons. Under what scenario is it conceivable that the U.S. would use 1,000 (or 100)
nuclear weapons against China or North Korea? What purposes would such nuclear
attacks serve? If, in any imaginable conflict with China to protect Taiwanese or
Japanese interests, the U.S. would not use even a large fraction of 1,000 total
weapons, why would maintaining such a large arsenal be necessary? Some fear that if
the U.S. reduces below 1,000 total weapons (leaving aside current counting rules that
exclude reserve and so-called “tactical” weapons), China might “race” to build
hundreds of new nuclear weapons to try to match the U.S. total. It is not clear why
China would do so, or how long it would take and what it would cost. But even if
China wanted to abandon the nuclear self-restraint it has displayed for 45 years, the
U.S. would not irreversibly reduce its arsenal to much lower levels if China did not
agree for its part to limit the scope of its nuclear arsenal expansion, and to establish
transparency measures to build confidence that it was adhering to such agreement. In
short, it is naïve and unhelpful to separate the challenge of maintaining extended
deterrence from the related opportunity to pursue arms control and confidencebuilding with Russia in Europe and China in East Asia.
Beyond the psychological tensions between fear of abandonment and fear of
entrapment, there are operational tensions in extended deterrence. Some of these have
been overlooked in the discussions that have been prompted by recent calls for a
world without nuclear weapons.
The U.S. Secretary of Defense Task Force on DoD Nuclear Weapons Management,
chaired by James Schlesinger, argued in its December 2008 report that extended
deterrence “requires nuclear capabilities that are visible and credible.” The report
concentrates on NATO and asserts that extended deterrence requires continued basing
of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe—a visible presence. Whether or not this is
necessarily true—for example, Israel’s deterrent is invisible but not questioned—the
issue of visibility is highly contentious within NATO. Some NATO governments
would welcome withdrawal of NATO-based nuclear weapons and greater effort to
eliminate nuclear arsenals globally. Some new NATO members actively and vocally
resent being relegated to a category of membership that does not allow nuclear
weapons to be stored on their territory. Others privately wish to retain NATO-based
nuclear weapons but are reluctant to invite public discussion or debate of the
alliance’s nuclear policy and posture. They would like the deterrent to be politically
invisible to their own people because these governments believe that their publics
favor nuclear disarmament. Two or more of these conflicting views can be found
14
within one government in several cases. Indeed, it is not clear which Western
European NATO governments actually want to open this issue and publicly reaffirm
the indefinite perpetuation of NATO basing of U.S. nuclear weapons. Visibility,
therefore, is problematic.
Michael Ruhle, a German deputy director of policy planning in the private office of
the NATO secretary general, recently wrote a thought-provoking essay for the Korber
Foundation that illuminates the dilemma more fully than the Schlesinger Task Force.
Ruhle challenges the German political elite and population to end what he perceives
to be an irresponsible avoidance of the extended nuclear deterrence issue, which he
calls a “‘wink–wink’ approach.”14 The passion of Ruhle’s argument and the fact that
he works in NATO headquarters and not in Berlin suggest the politically charged
nature of the NATO nuclear question. Ruhle seeks to impress upon Germans the need
to join with the U.S. in recognizing that participation in military action may be
necessary to contain or reverse the dangers of nuclear proliferation and that ballistic
missile defenses could be useful to this end. He urges Germany to desist from tackling
“the unpleasant problem primarily with the help of vague phrases about
disarmament.”15
Yet, Ruhle, unlike the Schlesinger Task Force report, acknowledges that “the specific
implementation of extended deterrence in NATO is not fixed and immutable. In other
parts of the world the US nuclear commitment was neither dependent on theatre
nuclear weapons nor on elaborate sharing arrangements. It would therefore be
incorrect to state that the withdrawal of American nuclear weapons from Europe
would spell the end of extended deterrence. After all, what constitutes ‘credible’
extended deterrence is ultimately up to the United States and its allies. If they were to
agree that relying exclusively on US strategic systems would be enough from now on,
this would be the end of the affair.”16 Ruhle does not favor such a move. He argues
that Germany “should adhere to nuclear sharing as an expression of defensive and
inherently non-provocative means of Alliance solidarity and collective defense.” Yet,
this well-argued plea itself focuses on the symbolic value of NATO-based nuclear
weapons in extended deterrence. Ruhle does not assess the ways in which such
symbolism diverts attention from the underlying problem of alliance solidarity and the
useable military capabilities required to make extended deterrence credible at this
time. Nor does he address the operational problems associated with the aging aircraft
platforms that would deliver NATO-based U.S. weapons, which in turn may
undermine credibility and possibly invite instability in crisis, as discussed below.
In Japan, unlike in Europe, there has long been insistence that the U.S. not base
nuclear weapons there. The presence of U.S. nuclear weapons on Japanese territory,
or even on ships docking in Japan, has been anathema to Japanese sensibilities. Yet,
some Japanese officials also say privately to US officials that Japan wants the
extended deterrent to be “visible.” Some knowledgeable Americans note that
Japanese officials have urged the U.S. to retain warheads for sea-launched cruise
missiles in the U.S. arsenal as a marker of “visibility.” Visibility in this context does
not mean that the weapons are literally seen. Rather, nuclear-armed sea-launched
Michael Ruhle, “Good and Bad Nuclear Weapons: Berlin’s Part in Shaping Nuclear Reality,” Korber
Policy Paper, No. 3, April 2009, p. 43.
15
Ruhle, p. 47.
16
Ruhle, p. 45.
14
15
cruise missiles “display” a greater U.S. willingness to use nuclear weapons in behalf
of Japan than do strategic submarine-launched ballistic missiles because the cruise
missiles would be launched from the region of conflict. In theory, such strikes would
invite retaliation that would be limited to the theater and not against the continental
United States. According to this line of belief, the U.S. nuclear deterrent would be
more credible because American officials could think that use of nuclear weapons in
theater would spare the American homeland from retaliation. American officials may
doubt the validity of these suppositions and the value of expending resources to
maintain a type of nuclear weapons that they think is unnecessary, but they have
agreed to do so to demonstrate respect for Japanese views.
Obviously this is the realm of psychology and guesswork. Critics of nuclear abolition
often claim that the argued benefits are theologically derived. Yet, beliefs in limited
nuclear war or the relative value of theater-based versus strategic nuclear arsenals are
at least as theological. There is nothing necessarily wrong with theology, but if it is
referred to pejoratively this should be done fairly. What is empirically true is that
different states and regions define visibility differently.
This variation can be seen further on the Korean Peninsula. As part of the effort to
ease tensions with North Korea and facilitate agreement to denuclearize the Korean
Peninsula, the U.S. agreed to withdraw nuclear weapons from South Korea.
“Invisibility” was not a problem for South Korea, whereas visibility was a major
impediment to efforts to persuade North Korea to agree to make the Korean Peninsula
a nuclear-weapons and reprocessing-free zone. The fact that North Korea has failed to
live up to this agreement does not mean that retention of U.S. nuclear weapons in
South Korea would have made North Korea’s compliance more likely.
The discussion thus far relates to visibility and the credibility of extended nuclear
deterrence. Stability is another important factor in assessing extended deterrence.
Whether in Europe or in East Asia, the argument can be made that visible deployment
of U.S. nuclear weapons on the territory of other states might actually exacerbate
instability in crises. Such forward deployed weapons could provide incentives (or
pressure) for an adversary to strike these weapons early in a conflict to prevent their
first use on the adversary. This is especially true for land-based nuclear weapons that
can be identified and targeted by an adversary. Russia presumably knows the
locations of the bunkers that store U.S. bombs dedicated to NATO, as well as the
airfields hosting the designated delivery aircraft. If and when war appeared imminent
or was already underway, Russia could feel pressure to destroy these weapons before
they could be used. The U.S. and NATO states could correspondingly feel pressure to
use these weapons rather than risk losing them. This would simultaneously exacerbate
crisis instability and debate within NATO which, depending on how it was managed,
could enhance or weaken deterrence of escalation. The greater the incentives to target
such nuclear weapons and/or to use them rather than lose them, the greater the risks of
nuclear conflict. Yet, the greater risk of nuclear conflict could inspire caution and
efforts to end or at least de-escalate the crisis or war. On one hand, it could be rational
early in a conflict for the U.S. to remove vulnerable nuclear weapons to avoid the usethem-or-lose them dilemma. But this could weaken deterrence even as it reassured
allied states and Russia that nuclear war would not ensue. On the other hand, to show
resolve and strengthen deterrence, the weapons could be left vulnerable in theater as a
trip-wire meant to demonstrate resolve and credibility of nuclear deterrence.
16
Such dilemmas point to the inherent ambiguity and dilemmas of extended nuclear
deterrence. In today’s world, where the probabilities are low of large-scale Russian
aggression or Iranian nuclear attack against NATO states, or Chinese invasion of
Japan or Taiwan, it is unreasonable not to focus on abating underlying security
dilemmas and reducing threats rather than concentrating on strengthening nuclear
deterrence. If removal of visible and vulnerable nuclear weapons could contribute to
broader improvements in security relations, including arms control and confidencebuilding measures, relying on invulnerable U.S. strategic submarines for ongoing
nuclear deterrence would seem wise. Broadening the framework of analysis and
international dialogue this way deserves greater consideration.
For Credible Deterrence, Focus on Non-Nuclear Capabilities
The most credible and perhaps least dangerous way to assure allies of U.S.
commitments to defend them is to station U.S. conventional forces on allied
territories, as is already the case in original NATO states and in Japan and South
Korea. With U.S. conventional forces in harm’s way, an adversary attacking a U.S.
ally would draw the U.S. into the conflict with greater certainty than if nuclear
weapons were directly and immediately implicated. Indeed, the greater credibility that
U.S. conventional forces bring to extended deterrence is one reason why Poland has
been keen to have U.S. missile defense personnel based on Polish soil. Were U.S.
personnel attacked, the U.S. would respond forcefully. Arguably the best way to
strengthen the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence would be to stress that
conventional capabilities of the U.S. and its allies alone are sufficient to defeat all
foreseeable adversaries in any scenario other than nuclear war. And as long as
adversaries can threaten nuclear war, the U.S. will deploy nuclear weapons to deter
that threat.
Of course, basing U.S. conventional forces on allied territory also invites controversy
in many places, including Japan. Such controversies are much less intense than would
flow from proposals to base nuclear weapons, but they point to the fundamental
underlying political-psychological challenge of extended deterrence. Allies want the
protection that the U.S. can provide, and worry about abandonment, but they also
don’t want to be implicated in U.S. policies that could entrap them in conflicts not
entirely of their making.
This tension is the heart of the extended deterrence challenge. To repeat, rather than
focusing on nuclear weapons, the U.S. and its allies should concentrate on building
cooperation and confidence in overall political-security strategies in each region.
Indeed, it is worthwhile to honestly consider whether in Northeast Asia and Central
Europe and Turkey the recently expressed concerns over the future credibility of
extended U.S. nuclear deterrence is a proxy for deeper concerns that are more difficult
to express.
For example, in Poland, Russia’s rhetoric and foreign policy, including the conflict
with Georgia, elicit private worries that NATO would not actually risk confrontation
with Russia to defend Poland against Russian bullying. Can NATO as a collection of
26 states with diverse interests and capabilities be relied upon stand up forcefully in
behalf of Poland (and other new NATO states)? Doubts about the answer to this
17
question at least partially explain why Poland has sought special guarantees from the
U.S. It is not clear that focusing on the nuclear element of extended deterrence in this
situation helps produce policies and capabilities that actually would deter or dissuade
Russia from bellicosity. The types of scenarios in which Russia might bully Poland
are not likely to include credible threats of Russian coercion that would make
countervailing use of nuclear weapons realistic or desirable. Indeed, raising the
specter of nuclear threats could undermine the credibility of extended deterrence
because allied states, including the American public, would probably become alarmed
in ways that would weaken resolve to push back firmly against Russian pressure. This
resembles the credibility problems of extended nuclear deterrence during the Cold
War.
Decisions to extend NATO membership to former Warsaw Pact states were made
during the 1990s when the risks of Russian coercion appeared to be a relic of history.
Precisely because the threat of war against the new NATO states was low, it appeared
to entail little cost and risk to extend NATO protection to them. NATO governments
and societies did not carefully consider the implications. However, once commitments
were made to new allies, it has become imperative to treat them seriously.
Given the unfinished challenge of mobilizing collective resolve to implement
NATO’s obligations, whether in Afghanistan or Eastern Europe, if risks of threats to
new allies’ security rise anew, great care must be taken not to invoke prospects of
nuclear crisis unless and until there are clear dangers of nuclear conflict. This is not
the case today. It will seem strange and unwelcome to populations of other NATO
states to call for greater salience of extended nuclear deterrence in response to a U.S.led effort to move to a nuclear-weapon free world. Many of these Western European
states have always been highly ambivalent about getting caught in a nuclear conflict
between the U.S. and Russia. That is, they welcome extended deterrence when it
might make war less likely but they fear it when it might make war in Europe more
likely, or more horrifying than it otherwise would be. Bringing this ambivalence to
the foreground now could needlessly weaken alliance solidarity. It would be wiser to
avoid such developments by focusing on confidence-building, threat reduction, arms
control, and reduction of the salience of nuclear weapons in Russian-Western
relations. If efforts to reduce threats and promote cooperation fail, then Central
European allies will most need reassurance that capabilities and determination exist to
counter Russian bullying by means proportionate to those Russia would use for such
bullying. Careless invocations of the nuclear element of extended deterrence should
be avoided.
Similarly, Turkey needs to be broadly reassured that NATO is determined to protect
its security. NATO should retain nuclear weapons in Turkey as long as Ankara insists,
but Turkey’s core concerns arise from the wavering responses it received when it
requested NATO conventional military deployments under Article V in the run up to
the 1991 Iraq War and again in 2003. Highlighting NATO’s retention of nuclear
weapons today, as Iran continues its uranium enrichment activities, obscures more
fundamental questions about how fully NATO states are prepared to support Turkey’s
broader security interests. Discussions of extended nuclear deterrence in Turkey
should not be avoided, but they should not be a substitute for addressing the deeper
issues of Turkey’s relationship to the West.
18
Japan’s concerns are more complicated still. North Korea’s nuclear weapons and
ballistic missiles, and Pyongyang’s refusal to address the fate of Japanese abductees,
will heighten the salience of the U.S. nuclear deterrent as long as these issues remain
unresolved. The U.S. would make North Korea’s complete nuclear disarmament a
condition of global abolition. In the meantime, even if deep multilateral nuclear
reductions were undertaken, the U.S. would still retain an overwhelming nuclear
advantage over North Korea.
China’s growing power—in all its forms, including political, economic and military—
poses a more complicated challenge for Japan and the U.S. Movement toward global
elimination of nuclear arsenals would necessarily require China’s involvement in
step-by-step reductions, verification, and confidence-building, including regarding
conventional forces. But even if this process were to proceed to a point where all
nuclear weapons were eliminated, China’s political and economic power could still
grow significantly. In geostrategic terms, China probably would become more
“important” than Japan as a result. It would be natural that this prospect, foreseen
today, could cause discomfort and uncertainty in Japan as it looks to the future. For
example, one can imagine that in 2021 a U.S. president would welcome the Chinese
premier as her first visitor to the Oval office. Or, a U.S. Secretary of State would
make his first foreign visit in China, unlike in 2009 when Japan was first. Japan
would still be an ally, and China not, but the balance of geostrategic power would
have shifted. This is not a situation that extended nuclear deterrence could change
even if security circumstances had evolved positively to the point where the complete
global elimination of nuclear arsenals was visible on the horizon. Yet, it is tempting
today to let the subject of extended nuclear deterrence be a substitute for reckoning
with the deeper question of the nature and relative priority of the U.S. commitment to
Japan. The point is not to neglect the nuclear issue, which must be worked on more
intimately than it has been, but rather to not allow it to obscure the more fundamental
questions.
A Way Forward
The Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, a U.S. think tank, recently published a
major report, “Realigning Priorities: The U.S.–Japan Alliance & the Future of
Extended Deterrence.” Based on extensive interviews with Japanese officials and
experts, the report concludes:
“The tradition of equating extended deterrence with a nuclear umbrella is
fading away, and this should ultimately yield a more practical and
operationally sound concept of deterrence. The process of getting to that point
should create opportunities to reshape extended deterrence for the twenty-first
century in ways that strengthen and diversify the allies’ security and political
relationships (possibly in closer partnership with other nations), which can
underwrite stability in the region and reassure Japan as the United States seeks
a lower nuclear profile.”17
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, “Realigning Priorities: The U.S.–Japan Alliance and the Future
of Extended Deterrence,” March 2009, p. xv.
17
19
There is reason to think that this conclusion also should apply to the other regions
where the U.S. currently extends deterrence to allies and friends.
Reshaping extended deterrence is feasible precisely because nuclear weapons have
little utility in dealing with the most pressing threats that U.S. allies face. (North
Korea is an exceptional threat because of the nature of its regime. But the nuclear
element of efforts to deter or defeat it can be provided by a tiny fraction of the number
of weapons the U.S. would wield for decades even if real progress is made toward
global abolition). The greatest risk is not in multilateral efforts to create conditions for
the elimination of all nuclear arsenals, but rather in avoiding the broader and deeper
challenges of fostering mutual reassurance and cooperative security, first among
allies, and then between allies and competitors. Putting too much emphasis on nuclear
deterrence can divert us from dealing with the more probable threats and developing
more useable instruments of security.
Finally, the U.S. and all of the allies to whom it extends nuclear deterrence have
obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to support the total elimination
of all nuclear arsenals. Japan has been a particularly strong advocate of nuclear
disarmament. Great care must be taken not to allow debate over extended nuclear
deterrence to raise the salience of nuclear weapons in national security policies at a
time when all NPT states are obligated to reduce this salience. There is no real
security threat to NATO or East Asian allies today that justifies inflating the value of
nuclear weapons. To act otherwise is to miss opportunities to improve security
relationships in Europe and East Asia. Such improvements are desirable in their own
right and can help create conditions for progress toward a world without nuclear
weapons.