Are Nuclear Weapons Useful? A Response to Mikhail Troitskiy

I felt a sense of deja vu reading Troitskiy’s polemical response. The very title of the article “Why Nuclear Weapons Are Strategically Useless?” gives rise to troubling associations. More than once in history has a particular kind of weapon been declared “strategically useless.” In the early twentieth century, French military commanders declared that airplanes had no place in the army and their scope of application was just in sports. In the 1930s, a notorious group of Soviet and French military leaders opposed the “revaluation of the role of tank formations.” In 1956, Khrushchev said that aviation and the surface fleet had become obsolete in the age of missiles. In each of these cases, the price paid for underestimating a particular type of weapon was quite painful. If we seriously believe in the strategic futility of nuclear weapons, wouldn’t Russia have to pay a painful price for this?

I felt a sense of deja vu reading Troitskiy’s polemical response. The very title of the article “Why Nuclear Weapons Are Strategically Useless?” gives rise to troubling associations. More than once in history has a particular kind of weapon been declared “strategically useless.” In the early twentieth century, French military commanders declared that airplanes had no place in the army and their scope of application was just in sports. In the 1930s, a notorious group of Soviet and French military leaders opposed the “revaluation of the role of tank formations.” In 1956, Khrushchev said that aviation and the surface fleet had become obsolete in the age of missiles. In each of these cases, the price paid for underestimating a particular type of weapon was quite painful. If we seriously believe in the strategic futility of nuclear weapons, wouldn’t Russia have to pay a painful price for this?

My objections are addressed not so much to Troitskiy personally (to whom I am grateful for the interesting and correct issue being raised) as to the concept of “security dilemma” described in his essay. In my opinion, this concept is erroneous due to the unjustified confusion of the military and political components of international relations. Back in the 1820s, prominent German strategist Carl von Clausewitz derived the formula “War is a mere continuation of politics by other means.” The armed forces, including nuclear weapons (NW), are not an end in itself, but a tool for resolving political problems. Their goal is to achieve a military victory that politicians may (or may not) be able to create through politics [1]. While the military instrument of nuclear weapons is designed for other purposes, Troitskiy sees them being used to solve political problems and on this basis proposes to radically reduce their role in the military doctrine of Russia. Unfortunately, some of the author's arguments are difficult to accept.

What have nuclear weapons failed to protect from?

The author notes “the failure of nuclear weapons to keep the large empires or states that possessed them from collapsing.” However, no nuclear power has ever officially assigned to nuclear forces the task of coping with the problem of internal political threats. And this is not without reason. Weapons designed to defeat an enemy or to destroy the strategic potential of fortified facilities in the operational rear are, by definition, no good for carrying out such internal tasks. In this regard, it is unclear why the author places the blame for the inability to prevent the disintegration of empires on nuclear weapons. Following Troitskiy’s logic, we can also say that the Air and the Artillery components of the armed forces have failed to prevent the collapse of empires or large states. Does this mean that we should reduce the role of aircraft and artillery (or even to abandon them altogether)?

The examples selected by the author more contradict the concept than confirm it. Troitskiy argues that “nuclear weapons did not help London to neutralize external pressure.” But the collapse of the British Empire under certain US influence took place in the 1940s. The British Empire was officially transformed into the British Commonwealth in 1949, i.e. before the United Kingdom conducted its first nuclear test in 1952. Similarly, France developed nuclear weapons in 1960 after its defeat in Indochina (1954) and the loss of key African colonies (1958). Incidentally, neither Britain nor France could technically resort to the nuclear blackmail of the Soviet Union or even of the United States immediately after the development of nuclear weapons, as at that time the former had no means of delivering nuclear weapons to the territories of the latter.

Mikhail Troitskiy:
Why Nuclear weapons are strategically useless?
Response to Alexei Fenenko

The author notes that “many of those who are reading this text are sure that external forces were involved in the disintegration of the Soviet Union.” It is hard to say what is meant by “involvement of external forces.” The idea of ​​reducing the powers of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) / Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the reform of the Union Treaty had been discussed by the Soviet leadership at least since 1946, when Joseph Stalin was still alive. The prestige of the Communist Party suffered unprecedented damage during Leonid Brezhnev’s grip on power (1964 – 1982). The policy of perestroika was initiated by the Soviet leadership at the April plenary session of the CPSU Central Committee in 1985, while the issue of the reform of the Warsaw Pact was raised by  Gorbachev during the signing of a renewal of the Pact in May 1985. Starting in mid-1985, the Soviet leadership prodded the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries to follow the policy of perestroika and even removed particularly obstinate leaders from office.

Furthermore, it was Gorbachev who argued that Clausewitz’s formula about the relationship of war and politics was no longer valid in the nuclear age. In his opinion, nuclear weapons could not be considered as a means of winning a military victory (in line with the logic that in a nuclear war, there would be no winners). This thesis allowed Mikhail Gorbachev to proclaim the priority of human interests over class ones and, above all, the idea of the “global survival of humanity in the nuclear age”. Gorbachev imposed several international self-restraints upon his own initiative. What does Troitskiy mean by “external influence,” if the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee himself urged the abandonment of the use of nuclear weapons for political purposes? Incidentally, the Reagan administration did not think much of Gorbachev's initiatives on global nuclear disarmament and tried to duck the issue.

Nuclear weapons are designed to solve two tasks. Their military task is to destroy the strategic potential of the opponent by carrying out countervalue, counterforce or decapitation attacks. Their military-political task is to prevent military aggression against a nuclear power through the threat of inflicting unacceptable damage to the enemy. (This task has been officially postulated by the United States, Russia, France, and, in part, Pakistan). No nuclear power has formally assigned any other task to nuclear weapons, such as maintaining international stability. Incidentally, it would be quite interesting to know how the author conceives of the technical side of preserving empires with the help of nuclear weapons.

Should nuclear weapons be protected?

I cannot agree with Troitskiy’s thesis about the destabilizing role of nuclear weapons amidst the development of disarming strike capability. The author notes: “If you fear a sudden destruction of your arsenal, you implicitly acknowledge the destabilizing role of the arsenal, which tempts the potential enemy to deliver a non-nuclear preemptive strike.” Here again we see an unjustified confusion of military and political aspects. The military at all times has developed options for destroying the armed forces of a potential enemy and for protecting their own armed forces. However, the decision on the outbreak of hostilities is made by politicians and not the military. Otherwise, we have to admit that the very existence of one country's armed forces provokes an aggressor’s pre-emptive strike.

Let me explain with several examples. Before World War II, the great powers actively developed bombers designed to destroy enemy aircraft on the ground. Did this mean that the Soviet Union, for example, had to recognize the destabilizing role of its aircraft or its lack of utility? Similarly, in the 1950s, both the Soviet Union and the United States actively developed air defense systems (AD) to protect against strategic enemy aircraft. Accordingly, these air defense systems became priority targets for the armed forces of the other side. Following the logic of the author, the Soviet Union as well as the United States should recognize the destabilizing role of their air defense systems and dismantle them in order not to tempt the adversary.

Back in the 19^th century researchers already established that wars were caused by political rather than military reasons [2]. The state of the armed forces could encourage the aggressor to commit aggression or, on the contrary, to dissuade him from doing it. But the armed forces per se (including their nuclear component) cannot start hostilities and do not provoke conflict. In other words, the blame for destabilization should be fixed not on nuclear weapons, but on politicians who want to destroy nuclear potential with a pre-emptive strike.

Are there objectives for nuclear weapons?

Alexei Fenenko:
A Dangerous Alternative

Troitskiy argues: “In the case of a limited military conflict nuclear weapons (both tactical and particularly strategic) could hardly be used – not least because it is unclear what objectives they should attain.” The Americans identified such objectives in the form of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If we dig into the official documents of nuclear powers rather than the materials from commercial media, which the author of the essay makes reference to so often, these objectives appear quite clear.

American nuclear strategy initially focused on defeating a strategic opponent (the USSR above all). [3] In the first phase (in place until 1961), this provided for launching a countervalue strike: destroying cities and the industrial facilities of the opponent. After 1961, the priority was shifted to carrying out a counterforce attack: destroying the strategic nuclear forces of the enemy before they become active. The Americans did not abandon the concept of a countervalue attack either. The Single Integrative Operation Plan, which has been renewed since 1960, envisages a combination of counterforce and countervalue attacks. In 1994, the Clinton administration adopted a concept of the possibility of the selective destruction of objectives’ complex through nuclear weapons to force the enemy to make peace. All of the versions of the National Military Strategy postulate the right and possibility of the US to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against opponents.

British nuclear strategy has developed a theory and practice of using tactical nuclear weapons. [4] Even at the turn of 1945-1946, British military planners were analyzing the possibility of replacing a powerful land army with nuclear weapons. By 1953 (and before the creation of the nuclear arsenal), the “nuclear menu” of the United Kingdom included three types of nuclear attacks: 1) a demonstration strike (a demonstration of a readiness to use nuclear weapons in case of a continuation of the war); 2) an operational and tactical strike (the destruction of enemy targets in the near strategic rear); 3) a defensive strike (the destruction of groups of enemy forces in the theater of operations). By roughly 1957, these British studies made up the basis of the American strategy of using non-strategic nuclear weapons.

The targets for using nuclear weapons have long been established and are being constantly revised. The absence of a political decision for firing against a target does not signify the latter’s non-existence. Troitskiy believes that the concept of “nuclear winter,” developed by a group of US experts headed by Carl Sagan in the early 1980s, makes sure that politicians will not take such a decision. This argument is more than doubtful. First, there is no unity among researchers regarding the scientific credibility of the concept of nuclear winter: there are many skeptics who have put forward serious counterarguments. Second, none of the nuclear powers has accepted this concept officially. The practical examples of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Totsky and Chernobyl testify to the fact that a limited use of nuclear weapons, which does not lead to a global ecological catastrophe, is quite possible.

What might replace nuclear weapons?

Mikhail Troitskiy
The Nuclear Factor in Global Politics:
Myths and Reality

Troitskiy sets aside the important issue of what weapons could replace nuclear ones. As of today, only nuclear missiles are capable of striking the strategic targets of the opponent with certainty. Back in the mid-1940s, it was acknowledged that non-nuclear aircraft cannot dispatch such a mission due to anti-aircraft defenses and pursuit aviation. Non-nuclear precision weapons are not able to carry out such a mission, since high-precision systems lack sufficient power. (At best, they can currently be used for the destruction of the infrastructure of weaker countries like Iraq and Yugoslavia).

The radical reduction of nuclear weapons proposed by the author gives rise to other doubts as well: the nuclear powers will not technically be able to take an opponent’s strategic arsenal hostage. Troitskiy notes the importance of the declaration of disarmament in the agreements on arms control between the Soviet Union and the United States. But the fact of the matter is that the SALT-1 (1972) and SALT-2 (1979) systems did not suggest disarmament, but instead an agreed additional armament of the USSR and the United States to certain limits. Both superpowers needed more nuclear weapons in order to take opponent’s growing strategic potential hostage. This situation changed in the mid-1980s, when multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles (MIRV) made it possible to solve the same problems with a smaller group of carriers, which provided the scope for an agreed reduction of delivery vehicles. Both Moscow and Washington ignored the reproaches of Bulgaria, Argentina and Japan about non-compliance with the NPT, considering them less important than their own interests.

In a world with a small number of nuclear weapons, Russia and the United States would be forced to adopt the French nuclear strategy of the countervalue strike threat. Being unable to achieve their strategic potential, they would have to reorient their strategic nuclear forces towards destroying a number of key enemy targets. However, such forces would be easier to destroy by a counterforce strike. And the aggressor might consider the loss of several cities an acceptable price to pay for final victory.

The author writes: “The aggressor’s material and reputational costs of waging such a war would be enormous, regardless of whether Russia has nuclear weapons or not." But as of today, strategic nuclear weapons appear to be the only tool available to Russia for inflicting “given damage” on the United States. Similarly, tactical nuclear weapons allow Russia to address serious imbalances with NATO’s conventional weapons. But for the United States, the situation is different, thanks to the forward-based systems in Eurasia, nuclear allies in Europe and superiority in non-nuclear precision weapons. Large-scale reductions in nuclear weapons today play objectively into the hands of the United States, rather than Russia or China: they will return to the US its “strategic invulnerability” of the 1940s, which other countries will not have. As for the “reputational costs” of the aggression, such an argument elicits just a smile: as we know, success is never blamed.

***

I do share Troitskiy’s opinion that nuclear weapons are designed to protect a country from full-scale external aggression. I do agree with the author that today only nuclear weapons can cope with this task. The problem is that currently there is no alternative to nuclear weapons as an instrument of coercion to peace. As of today, the threat of nuclear retaliation (real or imaginary) makes a potential aggressor feel uncertain. It is not clear what will replace this threat in the world with a small number of nuclear weapons. Given the fierceness of the sanction war between Russia and the United States, we can only guess how Moscow and Washington will talk to each other without any deterrent.

1. On the relationship between the military and political international relations, see A.G. Arbatov Defense and Sufficient Security. Moscow, 1990; A.A. Kokoshin: Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and the Present. Moscow, KRASAND Publishers, 2009 [in Russian].

2. See A.N. Mertsalov, L.N. Mertsalova Stalinism and War. Moscow, Rodnik Publishers, 1994 [in Russian].

3. Wohlstetter A. The Delicate Balance of Terror // Foreign Affairs. Vol. 37. No 2. January 1959. P. 211–234.

4. V.G. Trukhanovsky British Nuclear Weapons (historical-political aspect). Moscow, International Relations Publishing House, 1985 [in Russian].

5. Sanguinettie Al. La France et l’arme atomique. Paris, 1964.

6. Military-Technical Progress and the Armed Forces of the USSR. (Analysis of the development of weapons, organization and action experience) / Ed. Lieutenant General Kyrian. Moscow, Voenizdat Publishers, 1982 [in Russian].