Fighting A Nuclear Armed Regional Opponent

Author : Department of Defense
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781973270805
Total Pages : 88 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Fighting a Nuclear-Armed Regional Opponent written by Department of Defense and published by . This book was released on 2017-11-10 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In order to sustain the current international system organized around American-led alliances, the United States may need to be able to confront challenges posed by revisionist powers armed with nuclear weapons. Immature or transitional nuclear powers are likely to pose especially pressing problems for US strategy and military planning over the coming decades. In light of this probability, the United States should develop the capability both to confront and, at least in a limited sense, defeat such powers while also preventing or deterring them from employing nuclear weapons for decisive effect. Such a balancing act will require a sophisticated set of capabilities and equally sophisticated planning, posturing, and action. This study will examine several different possible responses, each with a correlative set of capability requirements. The first option is to maintain the status quo with its brittle binary responses to nuclear threats: inaction or nuclear retaliation. The second option would invest in capabilities that allow the US to defeat an adversary witling to use its nascent nuclear arsenal. The last option is an extensive program intended to permit the US to conduct operations across the military spectrum in the face of significant nuclear use by an opponent. The bottom line is quite simple: the United States should have military and technological options to deal with emerging nuclear powers. However, investing in meaningful response options would require the US political leadership to acknowledge that the current status quo strategy - with its focus on preparing for strictly conventional regional contingencies - is dangerously inadequate. This may be especially true in dealing with emerging nuclear states, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, that have a strongly revisionist geo-strategic agenda. On the other hand, if the United States decides against making the investment to adapt to these emerging nuclear powers, it calls into question the central rationale for continuing a massive and sustained investment in high technology conventional capabilities since few will wish to fight the United States on its own terms. In a world of nuclear-armed adversaries, forces optimized to fight only conventionally-armed regional powers would seem to have little utility. The Range of Regional Nuclear Threats * Nascent or Tier One Capabilities: Limited Retaliatory Capability * Militarily Operational or Tier Two Capabilities: Multi-Salvo Capability * Mature Tier Three Capabilities: Assured Retaliatory Capability * The Shield/Sword Challenge * US National Military Response Options * The Status Quo, Option A * Moderate Adaptation Strategy, Option B * Aggressive Adaptation Strategy, Option C * Overview * I. THEMES FROM THE HISTORY OF NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION * II. THE STRATEGIC CHALLENGE OF EMERGING NUCLEAR POWERS * III. ALTERNATIVE NATIONAL SECURITY RESPONSES * Option A * Doctrine and Concepts of Operation * Option B * Doctrine and Concepts of Operation * Option C * Doctrine and Concepts of Operation * IV. Preparing for Nuclear Operations: Cold War Lessons Learned * V. RESPONDING TO A REGIONAL NUCLEAR CHALLENGE: THE STATUS QUO, OPTION A * Enhanced Counterforce Investments * All Weather Precision Guided Munitions * Persistent Attack Munitions * All Weather Precision and Persistent Surveillance and Targeting * Enhanced Active Defense Investments * The National Security Space (NSS) Architecture * On EMP and High Altitude Nuclear Detonation (HAND) * Enhanced R&D and Training * Enhanced Expeditionary Capability * An Overview * VI. "DEFEATING" A NUCLEAR-ARMED REGIONAL POWER: A MODERATE ADAPTATION STRATEGY, OPTION B * Requirements for Option B * The Dynamic Regional Nuclear Threat * Counter-Nuclear Campaign Requirements * Persistent Reconnaissance-Strike * A New Generation of Earth Penetration Warheads * Resurrecting Joint Counter-Nuclear Campaign Training * Active Defenses * More Robust C4ISR * Preparing for EMP and HAND Attacks

Author : David A. Ochmanek
Publisher : Rand Corporation
ISBN 13 : 0833042327
Total Pages : 79 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Challenge of Nuclear-armed Regional Adversaries written by David A. Ochmanek and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2008 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A defining feature of the post-Cold War international security environment has been that the United States, acting either alone or with allies and coalition partners, possessed the capability to impose its will on states, such as Serbia and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, that could be termed regional adversaries. We define this term to mean countries (1) that pursue policies that are at odds with the interests of the United States and its security partners and that run counter to broadly accepted norms of state behavior and (2) whose size and military forces are not of the first magnitude. 1 The category is useful as a means of distinguishing this group of states from larger, more powerful states, such as Russia, China, and India, which do not share their vulnerabilities to forcible intervention and which, for the present, at least, are pursuing policies vis- -vis the United States and its allies that are generally more cooperative than confrontational.

Author : Gro Nystuen
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139992740
Total Pages : 804 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nuclear Weapons under International Law written by Gro Nystuen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 804 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nuclear Weapons under International Law is a comprehensive treatment of nuclear weapons under key international law regimes. It critically reviews international law governing nuclear weapons with regard to the inter-state use of force, international humanitarian law, human rights law, disarmament law, and environmental law, and discusses where relevant the International Court of Justice's 1996 Advisory Opinion. Unique in its approach, it draws upon contributions from expert legal scholars and international law practitioners who have worked with conventional and non-conventional arms control and disarmament issues. As a result, this book embraces academic consideration of legal questions within the context of broader political debates about the status of nuclear weapons under international law.

Author :
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1428910336
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly 40 years after the concept of finite deterrence was popularized by the Johnson administration, nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) thinking appears to be in decline. The United States has rejected the notion that threatening population centers with nuclear attacks is a legitimate way to assure deterrence. Most recently, it withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement based on MAD. American opposition to MAD also is reflected in the Bush administration's desire to develop smaller, more accurate nuclear weapons that would reduce the number of innocent civilians killed in a nuclear strike. Still, MAD is influential in a number of ways. First, other countries, like China, have not abandoned the idea that holding their adversaries' cities at risk is necessary to assure their own strategic security. Nor have U.S. and allied security officials and experts fully abandoned the idea. At a minimum, acquiring nuclear weapons is still viewed as being sensible to face off a hostile neighbor that might strike one's own cities. Thus, our diplomats have been warning China that Japan would be under tremendous pressure to go nuclear if North Korea persisted in acquiring a few crude weapons of its own. Similarly, Israeli officials have long argued, without criticism, that they would not be second in acquiring nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Indeed, given that Israelis surrounded by enemies that would not hesitate to destroy its population if they could, Washington finds Israel's retention of a significant nuclear capability totally "understandable."

Author : John J. Mearsheimer
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501713256
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Conventional Deterrence written by John J. Mearsheimer and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1985-08-21 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional Deterrence is a book about the origins of war. Why do nations faced with the prospect of large-scale conventional war opt for or against an offensive strategy? John J. Mearsheimer examines a number of crises that led to major conventional wars to explain why deterrence failed. He focuses first on Allied and German decision making in the years 1939–1940, analyzing why the Allies did not strike first against Germany after declaring war and, conversely, why the Germans did attack the West. Turning to the Middle East, he examines the differences in Israeli and Egyptian strategic doctrines prior to the start of the major conventional conflicts in that region. Mearsheimer then critically assays the relative strengths and weaknesses of NATO and the Warsaw Pact to determine the prospects for conventional deterrence in any future crisis. He is also concerned with examining such relatively technical issues as the impact of precision-guided munitions (PGM) on conventional deterrence and the debate over maneuver versus attrition warfare.Mearsheimer pays considerable attention to questions of military strategy and tactics. Challenging the claim that conventional detrrence is largely a function of the numerical balance of forces, he also takes issue with the school of thought that ascribes deterrence failures to the dominance of "offensive" weaponry. In addition to examining the military consideration underlying deterrence, he also analyzes the interaction between those military factors and the broader political considerations that move a nation to war.

Author : Barry R. Posen
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 080146837X
Total Pages : 295 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inadvertent Escalation written by Barry R. Posen and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-13 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sobering book, Barry R. Posen demonstrates how the interplay between conventional military operations and nuclear forces could, in conflicts among states armed with both conventional and nuclear weaponry, inadvertently produce pressures for nuclear escalation. Knowledge of these hidden pressures, he believes, may help some future decision maker avoid catastrophe.Building a formidable argument that moves with cumulative force, he details the way in which escalation could occur not by mindless accident, or by deliberate preference for nuclear escalation, but rather as a natural accompaniment of land, naval, or air warfare at the conventional level. Posen bases his analysis on an empirical study of the east-west military competition in Europe during the 1980s, using a conceptual framework drawn from international relations theory, organization theory, and strategic theory.The lessons of his book, however, go well beyond the east-west competition. Since his observations are relevant to all military competitions between states armed with both conventional and nuclear weaponry, his book speaks to some of the problems that attend the proliferation of nuclear weapons in longstanding regional conflicts. Optimism that small and medium nuclear powers can easily achieve "stable" nuclear balances is, he believes, unwarranted.

Author : Paul C. Avey
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501740393
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Tempting Fate written by Paul C. Avey and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-15 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why would countries without nuclear weapons even think about fighting nuclear-armed opponents? A simple answer is that no one believes nuclear weapons will be used. But that answer fails to consider why nonnuclear state leaders would believe that in the first place. In this superb unpacking of the dynamics of conflict under conditions of nuclear monopoly, Paul C. Avey argues that the costs and benefits of using nuclear weapons create openings that weak nonnuclear actors can exploit. Tempting Fate uses four case studies to show the key strategies available to nonnuclear states: Iraqi decision-making under Saddam Hussein in confrontations with the United States; Egyptian leaders' thinking about the Israeli nuclear arsenal during wars in 1969–70 and 1973; Chinese confrontations with the United States in 1950, 1954, and 1958; and a dispute that never escalated to war, the Soviet-United States tensions between 1946 and 1948 that culminated in the Berlin Blockade. Those strategies include limiting the scope of the conflict, holding chemical and biological weapons in reserve, seeking outside support, and leveraging international non-use norms. Counterintuitively, conventionally weak nonnuclear states are better positioned to pursue these strategies than strong ones, so that wars are unlikely when the nonnuclear state is powerful relative to its nuclear opponent. Avey demonstrates clearly that nuclear weapons cast a definite but limited shadow, and while the world continues to face various nuclear challenges, understanding conflict in nuclear monopoly will remain a pressing concern for analysts and policymakers.

Author : National Research Council
Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309175100
Total Pages : 243 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1997-04-02 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deterrence as a strategic concept evolved during the Cold War. During that period, deterrence strategy was aimed mainly at preventing aggression against the United States and its close allies by the hostile Communist power centersâ€"the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its allies, Communist China and North Korea. In particular, the strategy was devised to prevent aggression involving nuclear attack by the USSR or China. Since the end of the Cold War, the risk of war among the major powers has subsided to the lowest point in modern history. Still, the changing nature of the threats to American and allied security interests has stimulated a considerable broadening of the deterrence concept. Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence examines the meaning of deterrence in this new environment and identifies key elements of a post-Cold War deterrence strategy and the critical issues in devising such a strategy. It further examines the significance of these findings for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Quantitative and qualitative measures to support judgments about the potential success or failure of deterrence are identified. Such measures will bear on the suitability of the naval forces to meet the deterrence objectives. The capabilities of U.S. naval forces that especially bear on the deterrence objectives also are examined. Finally, the book examines the utility of models, games, and simulations as decision aids in improving the naval forces' understanding of situations in which deterrence must be used and in improving the potential success of deterrence actions.

Author : Vipin Narang
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691159831
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era written by Vipin Narang and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-25 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is in a second nuclear age in which regional powers play an increasingly prominent role. These states have small nuclear arsenals, often face multiple active conflicts, and sometimes have weak institutions. How do these nuclear states—and potential future ones—manage their nuclear forces and influence international conflict? Examining the reasoning and deterrence consequences of regional power nuclear strategies, this book demonstrates that these strategies matter greatly to international stability and it provides new insights into conflict dynamics across important areas of the world such as the Middle East, East Asia, and South Asia. Vipin Narang identifies the diversity of regional power nuclear strategies and describes in detail the posture each regional power has adopted over time. Developing a theory for the sources of regional power nuclear strategies, he offers the first systematic explanation of why states choose the postures they do and under what conditions they might shift strategies. Narang then analyzes the effects of these choices on a state's ability to deter conflict. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, he shows that, contrary to a bedrock article of faith in the canon of nuclear deterrence, the acquisition of nuclear weapons does not produce a uniform deterrent effect against opponents. Rather, some postures deter conflict more successfully than others. Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era considers the range of nuclear choices made by regional powers and the critical challenges they pose to modern international security.

Author : United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 162 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Doctrine for Joint Operations written by United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: