Boost-glide Weapons and US-China Strategic Stability

ABSTRACT

The United States and China are testing boost-glide weapons, long-range strike systems capable of flying at Mach 5 or faster through the upper atmosphere. For the United States, these systems would provide a conventional prompt global strike capability, which, together with US ballistic missile defense programs, Chinese experts regard as a threat to China's ability to conduct nuclear retaliation. This perception is encouraging the Chinese military to modify its nuclear posture in ways that tend to create greater risks for both sides. If China's own boost-glide systems are meant to carry nuclear payloads only, their deployment would not fundamentally alter the current situation between the two states. However, if they were conventionally armed or dual-purpose, or if the United States could not determine the payloads they carried, the deployment of Chinese boost-glide systems could compound problems of strategic stability created by the introduction of ballistic missile defense, antisatellite, and antiship ballistic missile capabilities. If the technical hurdles can be overcome, it may be difficult for the two sides to refrain from these deployments in the absence of strong mutual trust or an established arms-control relationship. New confidence-building measures and expanded mutual transparency are warranted to avoid creating new dangers.     

ADVANCED US CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

The Obama administration has made a great effort to increase the role of advanced conventional weaponry in US national security thinking and practice, in part to help reinvigorate the global nuclear disarmament agenda by reducing the role played by nuclear weapons in the US defense posture. However, such a strategy is fundamentally flawed because increases in US conventional superiority will exacerbate US relative strength vis-à-vis other powers, and therefore make the prospect of a nuclear weapon-free world seem less attractive to Washington's current and potential nuclear rivals. Consequently, it is highly likely that the impact of efforts to increase US advanced conventional superiority through ballistic missile defense and a conventional “prompt global strike” program will ensure that the Obama administration is adopting a pathway to nuclear abolition on which it is the sole traveler for the foreseeable future.     

SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT A FIRST STRIKE

This article critiques recent articles in Foreign Affairs and International Security that argue that in the foreseeable future the United States could acquire an assured first-strike capability vis-à-vis Russia and China thanks to technological improvements in U.S. nuclear delivery systems and a general decline in the numbers and capabilities of Russian nuclear forces. Notwithstanding these articles, this analysis finds that mutual deterrence will persist regardless of the scale of possible future imbalances because deterrence is a highly flexible phenomenon. The pertinent question is not whether the United States will be able, in a surprise first strike, to cripple severely Russian response capabilities, but whether political stakes in any foreseeable conflict could justify the risk of even a small retaliatory strike on the United States. This article also assesses whether the Foreign Affairs and International Security articles could inadvertently exacerbate an already highly charged anti-American sentiment in Russia, possibly laying the foundation for a revitalization and expansion of the Russian nuclear arsenal.     

NUCLEAR STABILITY AT LOW NUMBERS

Chinese writings on the workings of nuclear stability, deterrence, and coercion are thin and politicized. Nevertheless, it is possible to glean, from direct and inferential evidence, rather pessimistic conclusions regarding Chinese views of nuclear stability at low numbers. While China has been living with low numbers in its own arsenal for decades, today it views missile defense and advanced conventional weapons as the primary threat to nuclear stability. More generally, China views nuclear stability as wedded to political amity. Because none of these would be directly addressed through further US and Russian arsenal reductions, China is unlikely to view such reductions as particularly stabilizing. While there is little in Chinese writing to suggest lower US and Russian numbers would encourage a “race to parity,” there are grounds to worry about China becoming more assertive as it gains confidence in Beijing's own increasingly secure second-strike forces.     

The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History

The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History. by Milton Leitenberg and Raymond A. Zilinskas (with Jens H. Kuhn), Harvard University Press, 2012. 921 pages, $55.     

India’s emerging space assets and nuclear-weapons capabilities

ABSTRACT

Over the last five decades, India’s nuclear and space programs have gone through several phases, from collaboration to divorce to supportive. An interplay of two factors determined the nature of the relationship. One was the state of India’s nuclear-weapon program. The second was international conditions, especially India’s relationship with the nuclear-nonproliferation regime. In the early decades, because of the rudimentary nature of India’s nuclear and space programs, the relationship was collaborative, since the rocket technology being developed was a necessary adjunct to the nuclear-weapon program. Subsequently, as India’s rocketry capabilities and nuclear-weapon program began to mature and concerns about international sanctions under the non-proliferation regime began to grow, the two programs were separated. The Indian rocketry program was also divided, with the civilian-space and ballistic-missile programs clearly demarcated. After India declared itself a nuclear-weapon state in 1998 and the programs matured, the relationship has become more supportive. As the two programs mature further, this relationship is likely to deepen, as the nuclear-weapon program requires space assets to build a robust and survivable nuclear deterrent force.     

【邀请论文】俄罗斯高超声速武器发展简析

高超声速武器研发是主要军事大国激烈竞争的重要领域,研发一旦取得成功,往往会产生颠覆性的军事博弈效应。俄罗斯高超声速武器的研发工作起源于苏联时期,经过数十年发展,已在高超声速助推滑翔武器和高超声速巡航导弹两个领域取得了突破,在全球处于领先地位。本文基于公开资料,简要回顾了俄罗斯高超声速助推滑翔武器和高超声速巡航导弹两类高超声速武器的发展历程,介绍了俄罗斯已经或即将服役的数种高超声速武器装备型号,分析了俄罗斯发展高超声速武器的战略动因与发展思路,总结了俄罗斯高超声速武器发展成果在各个领域与层次产生的多重影响,并指出了俄罗斯高超声速武器发展在研究资源投入、战斗力生成、作战体系构建等方面面临的矛盾与问题。     

The end of the “INF Treaty” and the US-China military balance

ABSTRACT

Whereas much of the debate about the demise of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty has focused on the European context and Russia’s alleged treaty violations, Asia looms large in the minds of proponents of the United States’s immediate withdrawal from the treaty. For many proponents, the fast-changing military balance in Asia and China's conventionally armed missiles constitute a sufficient cause for withdrawal. What does the end of the INF Treaty bode for the US-China military balance? This article argues that, although there are some near-term benefits for the US position in the conventional military balance with China, the advantages offered by prohibited missiles are minor and can be readily substituted by extant capabilities that are compliant with the treaty. Given the negative implications of the end of the INF Treaty for the future of arms control, the costs and benefits of withdrawing from the treaty require further examination; the military balance in Asia is an unpersuasive rationale for withdrawing from an important part of the arms-control architecture.     

ALL TOGETHER NOW

Banning Weapons of Mass Destruction, by Frederick N. Mattis. Praeger Security International, 2009. 129 pages, $39.95.     

GLOBALIZING REAGAN'S INF TREATY

When it was concluded more than a quarter century ago, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was hailed as a disarmament watershed, eliminating entire classes of nuclear missiles from the arsenals of the arms-racing Cold War superpowers. Over the intervening decades, there have been repeated calls to convert this legacy treaty into a new international norm against nuclear and missile proliferation by broadening it into a global prohibition on ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Indeed, variations on this proposal have been knocking around for so long and with so little success that the entire concept has come to be dismissed by many knowledgeable insiders as something of a farce. Looking beyond its inauspicious pedigree, however, this viewpoint suggests that the time is opportune for Washington to give the idea a fresh look. Drawing on a detailed review of the history of “Global INF” and an analysis of the contemporary context, the author recommends that the Obama administration consider a simple declaratory approach that promises modest initial benefits, avoids previous and foreseeable pitfalls, and plausibly lays a solid foundation for achieving significant long-term progress.     

Chemical weapons and the Iran‐Iraq war: A case study in noncompliance

Policy makers and scholars have drawn improper lessons from the Ukrainian case of disarmament. Employing a content analysis of Ukrainian and Russian news sources, as well as a series of interviews with Ukrainian officials conducted by the author, this paper argues that Ukraine did not surrender its nuclear arsenal because it received compensation or faced financial and technical hurdles in securing effective command and control over the weapons. Instead, Ukraine surrendered its nuclear weapons due to a lack of demand for them. The historical interactions between Ukrainians and Russians led the majority of Ukrainian leaders to reject a conception of the Ukrainian national identity that cognitively perceived Russia as a security threat. Only with a proper understanding of this case study can the international community understand how the nonproliferation norm succeeded.     

How durable is the nuclear weapons taboo?

The nuclear weapons taboo is considered one of the strongest norms in international politics. A prohibition against using nuclear weapons has seemingly shaped state behavior for nearly seven decades and, according to some observers, made nuclear use ‘unthinkable’ today or in the future. Although scholars have shown that nuclear aversion has affected decision-making behavior, important questions about the nuclear taboo remain unanswered. This article seeks to answer a basic question: How durable is the taboo? We develop different predictions about norm durability depending on whether the taboo is based primarily on moral logic or strategic logic. We use the comparable case of the norm against strategic bombing in the 20th century to evaluate these hypotheses. The logic and evidence presented in this paper suggest that the norm of nuclear non-use is much more fragile than most analysts understand.     

THE ORIGINS OF AND PROSPECTS FOR RUSSIAN NUCLEAR DOCTRINE

This article explores Russia's increasing reliance on nuclear weapons from three perspectives. First, it seeks to demonstrate that the phenomenon is not exclusively limited to Russia and represents a broader trend, which is ultimately rooted in the nature of the contemporary international system or, more precisely, the uncertainties of the transitional period between the Cold War system and a new emerging one. Second, it analyzes the role assigned to nuclear weapons in Russia's doctrinal documents, in particular the emergence of a new mission—limited-use of nuclear weapons to deter or, if deterrence fails, to de-escalate large-scale conventional conflicts. Discussions of the new doctrine, which have begun recently, suggest that this new mission will likely remain unchanged. Finally, this article looks at the apparent discrepancy between Russia's nuclear modernization programs and the roles assigned to nuclear weapons in the military doctrine, as well as the causes of that discrepancy.     

美国退出《中导条约》与俄美关系发展走向

2018年10月,美国宣布单方面退出《中导条约》。《中导条约》是美苏两国在冷战后期达成的,并得到了切实执行的条约,对于维护冷战后全球战略平衡发挥了至关重要的作用。冷战后,俄美曾经企图将《中导条约》多边化,构建俄美新型战略关系,但最终反目成仇,使得俄美关系严重倒退,并迈入新的相互战略遏制的时代。