THE EVOLUTION OF NUCLEAR STRATEGY

Published in association with the International Institute for StrategicStudies

Studies in International Security

James Cable: GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY, 1919-1979J. I. Coffey:ARMS CONTROL AND EUROPEAN SECURITY:

A Guide to East-West NegotiationsLawrence Freedman: THE EVOLUTION OF NUCLEAR

STRATEGYGwyn Harries-Jenkins (editor): ARMED FORCES AND THE

WELFARE SOCIETIES: CHALLENGES IN THE 1980sRobert Jackson: SOUTH ASIAN CRISIS : India - Pakistan ­

BangladeshJ. M. Lee: AFRICAN ARMIES AND CIVIL ORDERAdam Roberts: NATIONS IN ARMS: The Theory and Practice of

Territorial DefenceRobert Thompson: DEFEATING COMMUNIST INSURGENCY:

Experiences from Malaya and VietnamPhilip Windsor: GERMANY AND THE MANAGEMENT OF

DETENTE

International Institute for Strategic Studies conference papers

Christoph Bertram: NEW CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS AND(editor) EAST-WEST SECURITY

PROSPECTS OF SOVIET POWER IN THE1980s

THE FUTURE OF STRATEGICDETERRENCE

THIRD-WORLD CONFLICT ANDINTERNATIONAL SECURITY

AMERICA'S SECURITY IN THE 1980s

THE EVOLUTION OFNUCLEAR STRATEGY

Lawrence Freedman

MMACMILLAN

©The International Institute for Strategic Studies 1981, 1983

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

without permission

ISBN 978-0-333-34564-1

First edition 1981 Reprinted 1982 (twice), 1983

Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD

London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives

throughout the world

ISBN 978-1-349-06608-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-06608-7

Contents

Page

Acknowledgments Xl

Introduction Xlll

SECTION 1 FIRST AND SECOND THOUGHTS 1

1 The Arrival of the Bomb 3The transformation of war 3Strategic bombardment 4The political science of airpower 6The experience of World War II 10Retaliation and the 'V' weapons 12The atom bomb 14The strategy of Hiroshima 16

2 Offence and Defence 22The persistence of the doctrine of strategic bombardment 22The new strategic environment 24The possibility of defence 30

3 Aggression and RetaliationThe vital first blowThe atom bomb and aggressorsEarly thoughts on deterrence

34343640

v

vi CONTENTS

SECTION 2 TOW ARDS A POLICY OFDETERRENCE 45

4 Strategy for an Atomic Monopoly 47Atom bombs and the American way of war 47The limits of the bomb 48First or last resort 51The bomb enters war plans 53Atom bombs and the Soviet way of war 56The Permanently Operating Factors 58

5 Strategy for an Atomic Stalemate 63The Soviet bomb 63The 'super' bomb 65Tactical nuclear weapons 68NSC-68 69Korea 71The conventional strategy 72

6 Massive Retaliation 76The British conversion 78The New Look 81Dulles and massive retaliation 84The spirit of the offence 89

SECTION 3 LIMITED WAR 91

7 Limited Objectives 93Consensus on a nuclear strategy 93The concept of limited war 97Limited objectives 102

8 Limited Means 106Limited nuclear war 106The Soviet view 110Graduated deterrence 112On strategy and tactics 117

SECTION 4 THE FEAR OF SURPRISEATTACK 121

9 The Importance of Being First 123On winning nuclear wars 123

CONTENTS vii

Prevention or pre-emption 125The virtues of counter-force 127The blunting mission 130Preparing for war 132A sense of vulnerability 134The delicacy of the balance 137

10 Sputniks and the Soviet Threat 139The impact of Sputnik 139First strikes for whom? 140Soviet strategy after Stalin 145The logic of pre-emption 147Conclusion 152

11 The Technological Arms Race 155The Killian Report 158The Gaither Report 160Mutual fears of surprise attack 163Technology and stability 165

SECTION 5 THE STRATEGY OF STABLECONFLICT

12 The Formal StrategistsMilitary problems and the scientific methodGame theoryPrisoner's dilemma and chicken

13 Arms ControlThe strategy of stable conflictDisarmament to arms controlThe disarmers disarmed

14 Bargaining and EscalationBargainingEscalationTactics in escalationEscalation dominanceThe threat that leaves something to chance

173

175177182185

190191195199

208208210211215219

viii CONTENTS

SECfION 6 FROM COUNTER-FORCE TOASSURED DESTRUCfION 225

15 City-avoidance 227McNamara's band 228A strategy of multiple options 232City-avoidance 234Retreat from city-avoidance 239

16 Assured Destruction 245Assured destruction 246Mutual assured destruction 247Dissillusion with defence 249The action-reaction phenomenon 254

17 The Soviet Approach to Deterrence 257The strategic learning curve 257Guidelines for stability 259A 'second-best deterrent' 261The American challenge 264The Brezhnev years 269

18 The Chinese Connection 273The -People's War 274.Atorn bombs as paper tigers 276

SECfION 7 THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION 283

19 A Conventional Defence for Europe 285Theories of conventional war 287European attitudes 293Towards a conventional balance 296Conclusion 301

20 The European Nuclear Option :(i) Anglo-Saxon Views 303

NATO and the Nth problem 304The British nuclear force 307

21 The European Nuclear Option:(ii) French and German Views 313

Gallois 314

CONTENTS IX

Beaufre 318De Gaulle 320German strategy 324The multilateral force (MLF) 327Conclusion 329

SECTION 8 RETREAT FROM ASSUREDDESTRUCTION 331

22 Military-Industrial Complexities 333The McNamara legacy 335The military-industrial complex 337Force planning under Nixon 340

23 The Consensus Undermined 344The Soviet build-up 345The action -inaction phenomenon 347The shame of assured destruction 348New technologie s 351Arms control 354

24 Parity 359Calm over Parity 360Concern over superiority 364Perceptions 367Measuring the balance 369

25 Selective Options 372If deterrence should 'fail' 372The search for options 375'The Schlesinger doct rine' 377Options for a European war 383ICBM vulnerability 387The political science of nuclear strategy 392

26 Conclusion 396

Notes 401

Bibliograph y 441

Subject Ind ex 461

Name Ind ex 468

Acknowledgments

The issues discussed in the following pages have been the commonfare of strategists wherever and whenever they have met during thepost-war years. Since 1975, when I began writing this book, I havebeen fortunate enough, as a member of the staff of, first the Interna­tional Institute for Strategic Studies, and then the Royal Institute ofInternational Affairs, to have had many opportunities to discussquestions of contemporary strategy with most of the leading membersof the profession. In the course of my research I have thereforebenefited from discussion and often argument with large numbers ofpeople on aspects of this study. They are too numerous to mention byname but some deserve particular thanks. Christoph Bertram notonly asked me to undertake this study in the first place, but has givenme constant encouragement, and not a little prodding, to complete it.In this he has been ably assisted by Jonathan Alford who suggestedsome valuable improvements to an early version of this manuscript.Michael Howard, who has served as my mentor from my days as agraduate student at Oxford, provided not only guidance on how totreat the subject but, in his own books, offers a model for any aspir­ing historian of strategic thought. In 1976 he chaired a series ofseminars I gave at Oxford, which provided an early opportunity totryout my ideas on a critical audience. A number of people haveeither read individual chapters or have served as a sounding boardfor my ideas : Des Ball; Richard Burt; Richard Haas ; Frank Klotz ;Barry Posen ; Greg Treverton; and Phil Williams. Albert Wohlstetterhas shown kindness not only in discussing the development of

XI

xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

strategic studies but in providing copies of relevant documents. JamesKing permitted me to read a copy of his own masterly unpublishedstudy entitled The New Strategy.

Debbie Van Opstall Ginsberg, who also read and commented uponmany of the chapters, helped in the construction of the bibliography.Jean Pell typed many of the chapters. Jane Capper took on the mainburden of typing and organizing the manuscript into a form suitablefor the publishers as well as helping with the bibliography and occa­sionally advising on syntax. My wife Judith has shown remarkabletolerance with my continued fascination with the rather disagreeablesubject of nuclear war.

My final acknowledgment is to the late Alastair Buchan. Not longbefore his premature death , as I was starting to organize my thoughtson how best to approach this subject, I was able to talk to him anumber of times. The advice he gave which stuck most firmly in mymind was 'if you are writing a history of ideas you must be bold'. It isthis advice that I have tried to follow. Whether the attempt has beensuccessful I leave it to the reader to judge.

L.D.F.

Introduction

On 6 August 1945 the first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japan­ese city of Hiroshima. At least 66,000people died almost immediatelyfrom the explosion and fire-storm that followed. Tens of thousandsmore died in the aftermath. Three days after the first explosion, asecond bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Theimmediate dead numbered some 40,000 people. The smaller size ofthe city and the hilly terrain meant that the devastation was not ascomplete as with Hiroshima. About 40 per cent of the city's structureswere destroyed or severely damaged, as against 80 per cent inHiroshima.

The weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki producedexplosions equivalent to that produced with 14,000 and 20,000 tons ofTNT respectively, an explosive power described as being 14 or 20kilotons. Many of the nuclear warheads now in the possession of themajor powers are in the megaton range; that is they would result inexplosions equivalent to that produced with 1 million or more tons ofTNT. If a l-megaton bomb is exploded at the height necessary toachieve maximum destruction, all brick houses would be destroyedout to 31 miles, with comparatively minor damage out to 13 miles.The blast would create winds sufficient to hurl objects (and evenpeople) through the air at lethal speeds, out to 6!- miles. Within aradius of about 6 miles most fabrics and paper will burst into flame.As far out as 11 miles the explosion could cause second-degree burnsand ignite dry leaves. The explosion would take its toll in human lifefor the following weeks and months through radiation sickness

xiii

xiv THE EVOLUTION OF NUCLEAR STRATEGY

and the spread of disease and hunger that can be expected to followthe breakdown of social organization. Any unborn children subjectedto irradiation would be likely to be born deformed. It is notaltogether clear whether or not a human society could recover fromthe aftermath of a nuclear war. The material, physical, and psychicdestruction might well be too severe.

The prospect of nuclear annihilation has become so much a featureof modern life that to dwell on it can appear trite. It is now verydifficult to contemplate a future without nuclear weapons, while it isequally difficult to comprehend the consequences of their use. As wehave learned to live with the 'bomb', other images of doomsday havecome to the fore. Various forms of ecological disasters, and eveninternal moral decay, now occupy the place in contemporary imagerythat the 'shadow of the bomb' occupied in the 1950s and early 1960s.However, nuclear warfare remains qualitatively different from otherroutes to Armageddon. The gloomy prognostications in these areasdepend on extrapolations of identified trends and simulations of theworld 'eco-structure' to predict decline. This is not necessary fornuclear warfare. If the deed were to be done it could be done quickly.It is within human decision. Our collective future is hostage to acontinuing act of self-restraint by the leaders of the world's majorpowers.

The enormity of the stakes involved in nuclear war for oursoci­eties ensure that the processes by which it might come to passcontinue to demand attention, stimulating a vast and diverse litera­ture. The strategic problems posed are intriguing and challenging.The awfulness of the weapons, and the inescapable vulnerability of allto nuclear attack, suggest the degradation of their use as instrumentsof policy. Despite this there remains a desire to exploit them to thefull in the construction of security policies. The problem of gainingmilitary advantage or effective deterrence from a nuclear arsenal inconditions of apparent stalemate has preoccupied some of the bestminds of our time.

It is a problem for which there can be no definitive answer. Thethankful lack of experience of nuclear warfare, since 1945, hasrendered highly speculative all thoughts on the likely causes ofnuclear war, its course and its finale. On the other hand, the weaponsinvolved and the physical consequences of their detonation are wellknown. Indeed, technical details on warheads, delivery systems, andbasing modes, often of the sort that would once have deserved thehighest classification, are widely distributed. Because of the pace of

INTRODUCTION xv

technological change, and, for the last decade, intensive negotiationsbetween the superpowers on limiting the growth of the quality andquantity of nuclear weapons, there is always something new fordiscussion. Nevertheless, the fundamental questions of how, when,and why to use these weapons remain matters for inference andconjecture.

Because of the difficulty of keeping up to date with the detail ofnew weapons or the latest arms control proposals, plus the desire toinfluence future decisions, those engaged in contemporary strategicstudies tend to be technically sophisticated, forward-looking andpolicy-orientated. This has led, with a few notable exceptions,' to aneglect of the history of the subject. Yet the problems of nuclearstrategy have been with us now for three and a half decades, and theattempt to cope with them has shaped, in a number of profoundways, the world in which we live.

The use of the word 'evolution' in the title of this book is somewhatmisleading for it suggests progress along a learning curve, implying ahigher level of present understanding than thirty, twenty or even tenyears ago. This was the assumption with which I began. Now, havingcompleted the study, I believe it to be false. What is impressive is thecyclical character of the debates . Much of what is offered today as aprofound and new insight was said yesterday ; and usually in a moreconcise and literate manner. The past three and a half decades haveencouraged a rich literature that is barely appreciated by many con­temporary students of strategy, especially those close to policy­making circles.

The richness of the literature, however, provides a powerful dis­incentive to anyone contemplating a comprehensive survey. It isdifficult,not to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the materialthat has been generated. In addition to professional writings of mili­tary men and reflections of politicians presiding over nuclear arsenals,there has been a vast outpouring of books, articles, papers, andmemos from civilians representing many academic disciplines andoften organized into new research institutes concerned with fewthings other than the problems of modern strategy. The literature isthus immense, threatening to overwhelm any would-be historian ofideas. In addition, the literary style is often atrocious. To help orderand explain such a novel situation, new and arcane concepts havebeen developed, which sometimes serve to clarify but often only ob­fuscate. The uninitiated has to work his way through a forbiddingmiasma of acronyms and jargon.

xvi THE EVOLUTION OF NUCLEAR STRATEGY

An attempt to note each intended contribution to contemporarystrategy would result in a work of great length and tedium. Inevitablya large proportion of the material is repetitive and derivative. In thesame way that a military historian is not expected to record everycampaign so a historian of ideas does not have to record every docu­mented thought. This work is selective, and in consequence thediscussion of some areas such as conventional strategy, and par­ticularly naval warfare, is inadequate; also, I have concentrated onthe strategic debate in the United States, the most vigorous andfertile, though without neglecting the parallel debates in the SovietUnion, Britain, France, and China. The aim is to provide a systematicand reasonably comprehensive treatment of the major themes ofnuclear strategy. To this end, the most important individual contribu­tions to the debate have been analysed in some detail, but this is nota collection of critiques of great texts and so some favourite authorsmay not have got the attention they deserve. Similarly, while I havebeen concerned to examine the interaction between theory andpolicy, this is not a history of decision-making.

Finally, to complete this list of what the book does not offer, itprovides neither a theory of strategy nor a new strategic theory. Whatit does attempt to offer is a detailed and critical history of official andunofficial attempts to construct a plausible nuclear strategy. As theseattempts have come from a variety of sources and appeared in avariety of forms there is no fixed pattern to this investigation and it isonly loosely chronological. I believe this approach to be necessary,not only to highlight the major issues, but also to illuminate the moregeneral expectations, understandings, and preoccupations that havecharacterized strategic thinking since 1945. If there is an underlyingtheme it is the attempt to develop a convincing strategy for extendeddeterrence, to make the United States' nuclear guarantee to Europeintellectually credible rather than just an act of faith. As will be seen,this is one of those areas where a policy has worked far better inpractice than an assessment of the theory might lead one to expect.

A book about strategy ought to begin with a definition of thesubject. A comparable book in the Soviet Union would open withelaborate distinctions between military strategy, art, science, anddoctrine . But as indicated above I have avoided restrictive terms ofreference. Furthermore, there has been no constant and generallyaccepted definition of strategy, even during the post-war years. Theorigins of the word 'strategy' lie in the Greek strategos, meaning theart of the general. There was little need to significantly alter

INTRODUCTION xvii

the meaning even up to the time of General von Clausewitz (1780­1831) who defined the concept of strategy as the use of battles toforward the aim of war.

By the twentieth century such a definition was blatantlyinadequate. The preoccupation with battles, always questionable,failed to allow for the great variety in the methods of employingmilitary forces and the choice of targets . Furthermore, the link withwar itself was too direct. When war-fighting was so distasteful, itmight be as important to preserve the peace by reminding a potentialenemy of the costs of war or even to achieve aggressive objectives byencouraging a weaker country to give in without a fight.

For this century, the definition of strategy developed by Basil Lid­dell Hart - 'the art of distributing and applying military means tofulfil ends of policy'? - seems more appropriate. It is non-committalabout how the military means are to be distributed while stressing, aswould Clausewitz, the role of the political sphere as the source ofstrategic objectives. It also maintains the connection with militarymeans, and in this differs from other contending definitions fortwentieth-century strategy. It has been argued that in an age of totalwar, especially when the value of military instruments has beenblunted by the excessive costs attendant on their use, that all themeans of national power - political and economic as well as military- should be incorporated into a definition of strategy. It is probablybest to resist this temptation. If we have to focus on all methods ofprevailing in any given conflict, the study of strategy ceases to bedistinct from the study of diplomacy or of international relations ingeneral and the sense that we are dealing with 'functional and pur­posive violence' is lost."

If some have sought to broaden the term, others have sought toconstrict it. When fledgling air forces, after World War I, wereanxious to demonstrate that they possessed a means for getting right tothe heart of the enemy's power and destroying it with some well­chosen blows, they described this as a 'strategic' capability. Thus theyspoke of 'strategic bombardment', using 'strategic bombers', even­tually under a 'Strategic Air Command' (SAC). After 1945 nuclearweapons, best able to perform this mission, came to be known as'strategic weapons', and a war in which they were to be used wouldbe a 'strategic war'. This use of the adjective 'strategic' has very littleto do with the noun 'strategy'. The connection has now become evenmore tenuous , with 'strategic' now tightly defined, in the 'strategicarms limitation talks, by reference to the ranges of certain weapons. A

xviii THE EVOLUTION OF NUCLEAR STRATEGY

weapon that can be directed from the homeland of one superpoweragainst the homeland of the other is strategic. It is difficult to avoidthis sort of use, as it is now the language in which nuclear issues arediscussed. However, the definition of Liddell Hart's remains the best,and unless the context indicates otherwise, it is the one adopted forthis study.

The developing muddle in use of this fundamental term prepares usfor the muddle of nuclear strategy itself. Initially, when atom bombsfirst made their dramatic entrance on to the international stage, theywere discussed and understood in terms derived from the establishedtheories of airpower. Eventually, nuclear weapons became morepowerful, more numerous and, crucially, possessed by more than onenation. New concepts and approaches developed in an attempt tocome to terms with a situation in which a war in which the mostformidable weapons available were used would, in all probability, becatastrophic for all concerned.

The question has been whether any useful purpose could be servedby employment of devices which invited discussion using words suchas 'holocaust', 'doomsday' and 'armageddon', and whether any em­ployment could be sufficiently deliberate and controlled to ensurethat political objectives were met. Which means at issue has beenwhether a 'nuclear strategy' is a contradiction in terms.