How effective is America’s deterrence?

In a recent Defense News commentary , we described how important it is to reinforce nuclear deterrence, a policy we have relied upon for security for decades. While many readers may understand that deterrence means avoiding war by maintaining our military strength, it is less well understood that deterrence relies heavily on the perception of our strength and intentions by a potential adversary.

Deterrence is not a static policy that can be instituted and remain effective; it needs to be maintained and updated periodically to cope with evolving conditions.

Nuclear deterrence was developed in the late 1940s between America and the Soviet Union, although at the time both were hastily building up stockpiles of warheads. The initial simple theory developed into the concept of mutual assured destruction. For the concept to be effective, each side had to be convinced that not only did its adversary have effective weapons, coupled with the means of delivery, but also the determination to use them.

Thus, for deterrence to be effective it has to be implanted in an opponent’s planning, discouraging that adversary from military action.

In an attempt to minimize nuclear proliferation, successive American administrations dissuaded allies from developing their own capabilities by offering them extended deterrence. This led eventually to the deployment of American nuclear forces in Europe and the Pacific, in part to demonstrate the U.S. commitment, not only to their allies but to potential opponents.

Changes in U.S. policy — such as the introduction of the Strategic Defense Initiative by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, and later the effort by President Barack Obama in 2009 to adopt the goal of a world without nuclear weapons — opened real questions about extended deterrence.

Allies concerned that the Strategic Defense Initiative could lead to America being protected by an effective defense sought an expansion of the criteria for any strategic defense to include allied territory and protection of deployed forces. Similarly, the Obama declaration, which suggested America might no longer rely on an immediate nuclear response to an attack, alarmed allies. This topic was raised again in November 2020 when the German defense minister acknowledged that Germany and Europe cannot protect themselves without America’s nuclear and conventional capabilities — an acknowledgment disputed by President Emmanuel Macron of France and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, preferring to see Europe less dependent on the United States.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, proliferation of nuclear capabilities has increased. The outdated term “third world” can no longer be equated with third rate. The acquisition of nuclear warheads by terrorists seemed unthinkable in 1968 when the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was signed. Now, in our current proliferated world, such confidence is much reduced, particularly since Pakistan became a nuclear nation. Pakistan have transmitted nuclear capabilities to others like Iran, who in turn have probably assisted North Korea.

Thus, clearly we still need to rely on deterrence while reinforcing security by the addition of an effective defense, as outlined in the referenced commentary. The world is now multipolar, and we have to explore new ways of maintaining our security in this nuclear-proliferated world. In the interim, we have to rely for the foreseeable future on our limited deterrence and ballistic missile defense capabilities.

In our opinion, deterrence remains limited because we have relied too long on systems that have not been modified nor upgraded since the 1980s. America regularly conducted underground tests to confirm our nuclear stockpile remained fully operational. The last test was in 1992, and since then the stockpile has been monitored under a life-extension program. Deteriorated components are replaced with remanufactured items — a change that potential opponents, on whom we rely upon to remain concerned at our overwhelming strength, will have noted.

The problem we have with the life-extension program is that most of the scientists and engineers who developed and produced the weapons in the stockpile have retired or left. With deteriorating facilities and no significant ongoing program to replace their expertise, unintended consequences can be introduced by replacing components.

Nuclear warheads contain both nuclear and non-nuclear components. Most of the latter were manufactured by contractor companies that may no longer exist, or they are no longer using the same facilities and procedures. The operation of the warhead remains critically dependent on the properties of these components, and no computer simulation program can assure this requirement is met.

Transparency of trials remains an important component of deterrence: We become less secure by not assuring potential opponents that we have the means to inflict devastating destruction to them in response to an attack. Sadly, our lack of investment in the development and production of new warheads reduces our level of security.

Stanley Orman is the founding director general of U.K. participation in the Strategic Defense Initiative program. Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Eugene Fox served as deputy director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.

在最近发表于《防务新闻》的一篇评论文章中，我们阐述了加强核威慑的重要性，这项政策几十年来一直是我们维护安全的基石。虽然许多读者可能理解威慑意味着通过维持军事实力来避免战争，但他们不太了解的是，威慑在很大程度上依赖于潜在对手对我们实力和意图的认知。

威慑不是一项可以一成不变的政策，它需要定期维护和更新，以应对不断变化的情况。

核威慑理论于20世纪40年代末在美国和苏联之间发展起来，尽管当时两国都在仓促地囤积核弹头。最初的简单理论发展成为相互确保摧毁的概念。为了使这一概念有效，双方都必须确信，对方不仅拥有有效的核武器及其运载工具，而且还决心使用这些武器。

因此，要使威慑有效，就必须将其纳入对手的计划之中，从而阻止对手采取军事行动。

为了尽可能减少核扩散，历届美国政府都通过提供延伸威慑来劝阻盟友发展自身核能力。这最终导致美国在欧洲和太平洋地区部署核力量，部分原因是为了向盟友和潜在对手展示美国的承诺。

美国政策的变化——例如罗纳德·里根总统在 1983 年提出的战略防御倡议，以及后来巴拉克·奥巴马总统在 2009 年努力实现无核武器世界的目标——引发了关于延伸威慑的真正问题。

盟国担心战略防御倡议可能导致美国自身拥有有效的防御能力，因此寻求扩大战略防御的标准，将盟国领土和已部署部队的保护纳入其中。同样，奥巴马的声明也令盟国感到担忧，该声明暗示美国可能不再依赖对攻击的立即核反击。2020年11月，德国国防部长承认，如果没有美国的核能力和常规能力，德国和欧洲无法保护自身安全，这一问题再次被提出。法国总统马克龙和北约秘书长斯托尔滕贝格对此表示异议，他们更倾向于欧洲减少对美国的依赖。

自苏联解体以来，核能力的扩散日益加剧。“第三世界”这一过时的说法已不再等同于三流国家。1968年《不扩散核武器条约》签署时，恐怖分子获得核弹头似乎是不可想象的。如今，在我们这个核能力扩散的世界里，这种信心已大大降低，尤其是在巴基斯坦成为核国家之后。巴基斯坦已将核能力转让给伊朗等其他国家，而伊朗很可能反过来又协助了朝鲜。

因此，显然我们仍然需要依靠威慑，同时如相关评论所述，通过增加有效的防御来加强安全。当今世界已是多极格局，我们必须探索在这个核扩散的世界中维护自身安全的新途径。在此期间，在可预见的未来，我们只能依靠有限的威慑和弹道导弹防御能力。

我们认为，威慑力依然有限，因为我们长期以来依赖于自上世纪80年代以来未曾进行过任何改进或升级的系统。美国定期进行地下核试验，以确认我们的核武库仍然完全有效。最近一次试验是在1992年，此后，该武库一直处于延寿计划的监控之下。老化的部件会被翻新部件替换——我们指望潜在对手对我们压倒性的实力保持警惕，而他们肯定已经注意到了这一变化。

我们面临的延寿计划问题在于，库存武器中大部分研发和生产人员已经退休或离职。由于设施老化，且没有持续有效的项目来补充他们的专业技术，更换部件可能会带来意想不到的后果。

核弹头包含核部件和非核部件。后者大多由一些可能已经倒闭或不再使用相同设施和工艺的承包公司制造。弹头的运行仍然高度依赖于这些部件的性能，任何计算机模拟程序都无法确保满足这一要求。

试验的透明度仍然是威慑的重要组成部分：如果我们不能向潜在对手保证我们有能力在遭受攻击后对其进行毁灭性打击，我们的安全就会降低。令人遗憾的是，我们对新型核弹头的研发和生产投入不足，降低了我们的安全水平。

斯坦利·奥尔曼是英国参与战略防御倡议计划的创始总干事。美国陆军退役少将尤金·福克斯曾担任战略防御倡议组织的副主任。