Sunday, April 18, 2010

The NPR on Force Structure

The NPR is remarkably non-committal on the U.S. nuclear force structure. It tends to skirt the issue by insisting that flexibility will rule the triad, while ignoring the obvious fact that under New START cuts will have to be made to one or more of the legs. The NPR states that "the United States should retain a smaller Triad of SLBMs, ICBMs, and heavy bombers. Retaining all three Triad legs will best maintain strategic stability at reasonable cost, while hedging against potential technical problems or vulnerabilities." The document admits that the technical hedge will be reduced overall, but compensates for it by retaining the "ability to upload some nuclear warheads as a technical hedge against any future problems with U.S. delivery systems or warheads, or as a result of a fundamental deterioration of the security environment."

The NPR is full of ambiguity in addressing the force sizes of each leg of the triad. It promises to "sustain strategic submarines," while floating the idea to "consider reducing from 14 to 12 Ohio-class submarines in the second half of this decade." The ICBM force is to be completely de-MIRVed, which is a modest warhead reduction since no more than 50 warheads are on ICBMs with multiple warheads. There is no indication that the sacrosanct 450 Minuteman-III force will be reduced, perhaps to avoid or postpone upsetting the bipartisan Senate ICBM Coalition. In a further move towards a de facto dyad, the U.S. will maintain "a smaller and highly capable nuclear bomber force." Since the NPR talks of funding upgrades to the B-2s and converting some B-52Hs to conventional roles, it is safe to assume that the nuclear bomber force will be a scant 18 B-2s and a few dozen B-52Hs.



Despite the ambiguity in the NPR on force structure, the numbers in New START will clearly lead to significant force reductions. The New START limits the U.S. and Russia to 800 total strategic delivery vehicles and 700 deployed ones. Setting the bomber fleet aside for the moment, the U.S. currently has 450 ICBMs and 288 SLBMs (336 total when the 48 unloaded for submarine refit are counted). That comes to 738 deployed delivery vehicles, without bombers included. The U.S. will likely have to either reduce the SSBN fleet by 2 (to take out 48 SLBMs) or reduce the ICBM force by 50 Minuteman. Since either of these reductions would take the total down to 694 or 688, there would either have to be additional cuts to accommodate the bomber fleet, or most of the bombers would be "non-deployed."

What are the implications of such reductions? First, cuts in ICBMs will provide a potential adversary with a lower threshold to attempt to reach strategic parity. China would basically need to double or MIRV its ICBM force to be equal with the U.S. in that capability. Second, cuts in SSBNs will reduce the flexibility of being able to keep a certain number of boats on strategic patrol while deploying some to trouble spots to reassure allies. Third, cuts to either could be a death blow for the fragile solid rocket motor (SRM) industry. In the wake of the cancellation of NASA's Constellation program, the SRM industrial base has lost well over a half or two-thirds of its business. Further cuts in orders for ballistic missile SRMs may well knock this critical industry into insolvency. Say goodbye to manned space flight and deterrent sustainability that day.

By boxing in the U.S. force structure this way, the nuclear force is moving perilously close to a dyad. The bomber force has suffered from neglect for years, consisting of 20 year old B-2s and Eisenhower/Kennedy-era B-52s. Studies to produce a next-generation bomber drag on, pushing the timeframe for initial operational capability into the late part of this decade or 2020s. If bombers really are valued for their stability, ability to be recalled, and flexibility, it would follow that there would be a commitment to sustain the capability. This has yet to satisfactorily emerge - a new bomber has been talked about for years, with little movement towards developing one. The perils of a dyad should be obvious - we lose the ability to send signals by raising alert levels and forward deployments. And if we would for whatever reason decide to strike, it is impossible to recall an ICBM, not so a bomber.

The NPR therefore dodges and postpones a lot of the tough decisions on force posture. Although it claims to endorse the limits set by the New START, it offers no concrete path for achieving those reductions. If it did so, it may have lost the votes from senators whose states would be hit hard by the reductions (states the delivery vehicles are deployed or manufactured in). Unless there are classified analyses of this issue, the New START may not win many of the votes it sought to avoid offending. It is foolish to commit to a set force structure for ten years, but the NPR and New START leave little room for maintaining the flexibility to adjust to changes in the international security environment.

1 comments:

Anonymous April 19, 2010 at 9:30 AM  

The NPR does not advocate a singular force structure because that information will be included in the Section 1251 plan that will be submitted with the treaty in May.

I don't know why you think that there are only 50 warheads on MIRVed ICBMs; there are more than that, but that's not relevant to your post since you are talking about meeting the delivery vehicle limits, not the warheads limits.

Yes, the NPR says we might go to 12 SSBNs in the second half of the decade. There have been several studies done in the Navy that show that the Navy can meet its current deployment patterns, and its current operational practices with that number. Why? Simple. We currently have 12 operational submarines and two in overhaul. The last two would go into overhaul in 2016 and 2017. If we don't overhaul them, we drop to 12 submarines, but all are operational. If, however, the ones in port don't have missiles in them, they can count as nondeployed under the treaty (even though they aren't in overhaul) And we save some money that the Navy may need to put to the very high costs of the SSBNs.

On the bombers, you are generally on target. Its almost a certain bet that the NPR/new START force structure will envision converting a signifcant portion of the B-52 fleet to conventional only missions. The Air Force has wanted to do this since at least 1994, when it proposed keeping only 47 B-52s in the nuclear mission. (In the 2001 NPR, it proposed removing all of them from the nuclear mission) Because of the very liberal conversion rules in new START, this type of change would not require the elimination of any bombers; it would actually provide relief for the Air Force since it actually uses its bombers in conventional roles all the time, and the need to keep them nuclear certified is a real drain on time and resources. Right now, there are only 44 B-52s combat coded for the nuclear mission. That might be a good number for new START.

Finally, you are missing one of the most significant provisions in the Treaty when it comes to determining the future size or structure of our force. Under new START, the United States can convert some launch tubes on submarines to other missions (or it can leave them empty) without converting or eliminating the whole submarine. They then would count as nondeployed lauchers, or, depending on the conversion procedure, they might not count at all. All it has to do is take out some equipment (like the gas generator) that would make it impossible to launch a missile from the tube. It could then have Trident subs that count as fewer than 24 launchers. Assume the subs count as only 20 launchers, then do the math, and see if you still believe that we have to eliminate lots of launchers.

By the way, if you are wondering, that provision is in agreed statement 9.

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