No to U.S. Nuclear Superiority

What’s old is new again. This can be said for nuclear weapons in world politics. From the Trump administration’s Golden Dome and China’s growing arsenal, to Iran’s alleged nuclear capabilities and the U.S. possibly deploying nuclear capable bombers in Eastern Europe.

Pursuing nuclear superiority is a dangerous policy. It has unrealistic expectations of human rationality. It mistakenly views counterforce targeting as a way to protect allies. And it is extremely expensive. To protect its interests and prevent nuclear war, the United States should avoid the pursuit of nuclear superiority and take alternative actions.

Deterrence involves countries showing others that the costs of attacking outweigh the benefits. The more pain threatened in retaliation to an aggressor, the less likely it is to attack. Supporters of nuclear superiority point to this framing of nuclear deterrence to justify building nuclear weapons. They assume human rationality.

It remains unclear if rational thinking, luck, or a bit of both has averted nuclear war. With new psychological breakthroughs and historical cases in mind, U.S. policymakers and military planners should be more cautious with posturing and building nuclear weapons. They should avoid the assumption that the other side or themselves will respond to a nuclear crisis in a “rational” way.

But what about America’s allies? Surely the United States needs enough nuclear weapons to reassure them that it will protect them. Counterforce—targeting and destroying another’s nuclear forces and infrastructure—attempts to solve the dilemma of trading “New York for Paris.” The better chances the United States has at destroying enemy nuclear capabilities and limit damage to itself from a retaliatory attack, the more credible are America’s commitments to defend its allies.

Here again, important realities are overlooked. It’s impossible for the United States to destroy all an enemy’s nuclear capability. Under U.S. counterforce targeting, millions of people would still die should war break out; less than under other targeting scenarios, but who’s counting at that point? This leaves the “New York for Paris” dilemma unresolved.

But surely the United States can afford upgrading and building more nuclear weapons. It spends about 3% of its Gross Domestic Product on defense, less than it did during the Cold War.

To put it plainly: the United States can’t afford nuclear superiority. America’s debt and deficit are at record highs, and the federal government spends around $1 trillion annually on its net interest payments. And the percent-of-GDP point is a sleight of hand. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the United States spend more on defense today than at any point during the Cold War.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates U.S. nuclear modernization to cost about $1 trillion. With the Department of Defense’s and military contractors’ track records of going over budget, this $1 trillion is a low-ball figure. And this price-tag excludes costs for building the Golden Dome, currently estimated to cost $1.2 trillion. This leaves the federal government with two poor options to finance nuclear superiority: borrow more money or cut domestic programs. The American people will be unconvinced of either route to fund this defense spending, especially with nuclear superiority being dangerous and unnecessary.

Instead of pursuing nuclear superiority, U.S. policymakers should take four steps to better defense America and avert nuclear war.

First, they should adopt a no-first-use nuclear policy. The use of nuclear weapons is only credible as a last resort. A no-first-use policy would placate other countries that the United States will refrain from using nuclear weapons from the outset of a crisis. This would reduce the temptation for any side to preemptively launch their nuclear arsenals.

Second, U.S. lawmakers should dismantle the country’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). U.S. nuclear capable submarines are survivable to an enemy surprise attack and U.S. nuclear aircraft can be recalled if there’s a false alarm. ICBMs have neither feature, making the president more inclined to launch ICBMs during a crisis before the enemy destroys them.

Third, U.S. policymakers should scrap the Golden Dome.  It won’t stop enemy warheads from hitting the United States. It will be expensive and will line the pockets of defense contractors. And it will accelerate an arms race between the United States and its rivals.

Fourth, policymakers should reform America’s nuclear chain of command. The president retains the sole authority to launch America’s nuclear arsenal. This launch authority throws caution out the window. Instead, at least two authorities should approve the launch of nuclear weapons.

Though complete disarmament may be unattainable for the time being, arms reduction should be in the offing. The United States should take the lead on this and do all it can to avert nuclear Armageddon.

Benjamin Giltner is a policy analyst for defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute.