Since the end of the Eisenhower and beginning of the Kennedy administration, the United States has sought to use arms control agreements with the Soviet Union to accomplish a number of objectives.
The United States wanted to stop any use of nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies through five arms control strategies: (1) restrict the development of new uses of nuclear weapons; (2) increase the transparency of an adversary’s nuclear arsenal; (3) regulate the growth of nuclear arsenals by channeling nuclear forces in certain stabilizing directions; (4) markedly reduce the incentives to use nuclear weapons in a crisis or subsequent to conventional conflict; and (5) prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology to additional nations.
The limited test ban treaty under the Kennedy administration stopped atmospheric tests and drove nuclear testing underground. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1969 sought to stop the transfer of nuclear weapons technology from the current nuclear powers as well as regulating the production of nuclear energy to prevent nuclear fuel from being reprocessed or uranium enriched into weapons grade material necessary to make nuclear weapons.
In late 1968, Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev worried that the US development of a limited missile defense, called for by Defense Secretary McNamara in 1967 to protect the US from an emerging nuclear armed China, was really aimed at undoing the nuclear deterrent of Moscow. The USSR leader demanded of President-elect Nixon that a missile defense ban be adopted, which President Nixon eventually accepted with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972.
SALT & START
The defense treaty was adopted and approved by the US Senate along with a companion offensive arms agreement known as SALT, which regulated the growth in US and USSR strategic, long-range nuclear forces. The ABM treaty allowed a single missile defense site limited to 100 interceptors protecting a nuclear armed missile site or the nation’s capital.
Given the political difficulty of protecting only the nation’s leaders in Washington but leaving the rest of America vulnerable to Soviet missile strikes, the US decided to deploy a limited defense protecting a USAF base in Grand Forks, North Dakota where were deployed one wing of Minuteman missiles. Given the Soviets could easily overwhelm such as small defense with only a fraction of the multiple thousand warheads Russia deployed under the SALT agreement, in 1974, the US Army recommended the site be taken down.
The SALT treaty allowed 2400 SNDVs, known as Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicles, for each country. The US had 1054 ICBMs and 656 SLBMs, while the Soviets had 2359 such missiles including 1500 land-based missiles, growing at 200 per year and 50% greater than the United States. The US missile numbers were the same as 1967 while Russian nuclear forces were growing significantly. Why was this? Secretary of Defense McNamara had told Congress in the mid-1960;s that if the US stopped building ICBMs at around one thousand, the Soviets too would cap their deployments at a similar number.
Video Above; A discussion with Peter Huessy, a seasoned expert in nuclear weapons analysis.
Although SNDVs were capped, the number of warheads that could be deployed were not controlled, and with the development of multiple warheads, it was clear the Soviets with far more “heavy” land-based missiles could deploy far more warheads than the US, especially on systems which were near 100% on alert, compared to sea-launched systems of which one-third were on patrol on a day-to-day basis.
Even with the SALT II Treaty of 1979, the growth would continue. By 1991, during the Senate over ratification of START I, one US Senator estimated Russia had built up to 13,300 strategic long-range warheads, while the US had deployed over 12,000 such warheads on strategic, long-range systems, including strategic bombers, while Russia and the US also retained arsenals of additional tens of thousands of regional, theater or battlefield nuclear weapons which were under no treaty restrictions.
With the 1979 SALT II agreement still codifying the continued growth in Soviet nuclear forces, (obviously Moscow never had any interest in reductions), it came to be realized that the critics of the SALT process were correct that the allowed growth by the USSR under SALT I and SALT II particularly in mirved land-based missiles (known as “heavy” missiles), posed a pre-emptive or first strike threat to the United States. This disparity would become what Reagan described as the “window of vulnerability” primarily as a result of the disparity in deployed heavy missiles between the US and the USSR.
By the mid-1980s, the USSR also deployed 1800 INF or Intermediate Nuclear Forces on medium range missiles, covering both Europe and Asia with possible strikes. The USSR deployment aimed at Western Europe was designed to intimidate NATO and break apart the cohesion of its deterrent.
The Reagan administration met both challenges with two unique arms control proposals that in both cases went against the conventional wisdom that assumed the Soviet SS-20 deployments would have to be accepted for at least some significant number of missiles, and that any future arms control reductions of strategic missiles would definitely not be possible.
Reagan also leveraged a strong defense buildup with a parallel deployment, supported by key US NATO allies, of US intermediate range missiles, (GLCMs and Pershings). Reagan also pushed through Congress a major strategic nuclear modernization effort including new bombers (the B1 & B2), a new submarine (Ohio class), a new C-4 submarine launched ballistic missile, a new ICBM (Peacekeeper) and a new cruise missile. With these deployments approved and in hand, Reagan, to the surprise of the “experts,” then secured two revolutionary strategic changes: the Soviets accepted the complete elimination of their SS-20 missiles deployed both east and west, and a 50% reduction of strategic, long-range nuclear warheads in the INF (1987) and START I (1991) agreements, respectively.
Even more remarkable, the subsequent 1993 START II treaty signed by Presidents Bush and Yeltsin in January 1993, cut by another 60% Russian strategic warheads, while also outlawing multi--warheads on land-based missiles, the very problem identified by President Reagan in 1976-80 as a key ingredient of Soviet power that had to be stopped.
Although the START II treaty was rejected by the Russian Duma, the 2003 Moscow Treaty did further reduce by 63% allowed deployed strategic nuclear forces, down to 1700-2200, even after the Bush 43 administration had taken the US out of the ABM treaty while simultaneously building a limited missile defense shield in Alaska and California.
With the 2010 New START arms agreement, strategic long-range nuclear warheads were reduced to an official 1550 level, notionally the lowest in nearly half-a-century, and no more than 700 SNDVs, a seventy percent reduction from the SALT level. Although strategic bombers were limited to sixty, the weapons carried including either gravity bombs or cruise missiles did not count against the limit, except for the bomber platform itself. This allowed a very robust bomber fleet to be deployed by the United States without heavily counting against numerical arms control limits.
In some respects, the Mocow and New START agreements kept actual deployed or allowed strategic systems at around 2000-2300 warheads, which Russia’s Putin wanted as a means of keeping US deployments within a boundary that gave Russia breathing room. That “space” helped Russia then begin a long-term nuclear modernization program, to overcome the brief slowdown in Russian nuclear deployments that came with the end of the Soviet Union and the subsequent serious economic problems with the Russian economy.
But as General John Hyten, the former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained at some length, Putin made no secret about Russia’s nuclear modernization plans which included the planned modernization from 2010-27 of over 20 distinct new nuclear systems or types, on top of Moscow maintaining somewhere between 2000-5000 theater nuclear weapons, (compared to the United States which maintains some 100 theater weapons but only in Europe).
As note, since the 2010 New START agreement was signed with Russia, Moscow has some 20+ strategic or long-range nuclear systems under development, in acquisition or already deployed. The breakout potential of these nuclear platforms is formidable even though Moscow maintains roughly 500 SNDVs out of the START allowable 700.
Although US and Russian strategically deployed or available to be deployed under the New START agreement have been reduced some 90% since the nuclear forces reached their zenith in 1991, these lower levels then bring up the issue of what to do if one of the treaty partners decides to break-out and add considerably to the current force?
As force levels decline markedly, a modest build-up could have important strategic impacts. After all, arms agreements since START have sought to hold both Moscow and Washington to the same warhead levels. This implies that numbers do matter. If that is the case, then the breakout potential of a treaty signatory must be taken into account in any arms deal.
Here the facts are worrisome, As Mark Schneider of NIPP has explained, the Russian breakout capability of its strategic nuclear forces alone is probably around reaching 4000-4500 warheads. A normal loading of warheads of just the New START accountable SNDVs would give Russia some 2700 deployed weapons according to estimates of the Federation of American Scientists. Nuclear expert James Howe estimates Russia could add 500 more nuclear warheads by 2025 simply be deploying the new strategic systems that do not currently count under New START rules.
The US growth potential includes adding four hundred warheads to the Minuteman or Sentinel ICBMs. General Frank Klotz, the former Commander of the ICBMs at 20th USAF estimates you could convert three missiles per Minuteman wing per month, and thus converting the current 400 one warhead missiles to upwards of three per missile would take forty-four months or nearly four years with the total upload probability bring the deployed number to 800 warheads.
The Navy has 12 operational or deployed submarines and each currently carry 20 missiles but that will be reduced to 16 when the new Columbia class submarine comes into the force from 2032-42. But assuming we now have 20 D-5 missiles available on the Ohio class submarines, the US Navy could add an average of 3 warheads for every missile or an implied 720 warheads for the entire 12 active submarine fleet.
For the US bombers, we are limited by the availability of additional cruise missiles or gravity bombs that can be loaded on each of 60 US strategic bombers. Currently, the New START agreement does not limit bomber weapons and it is thus unclear how many additional strategic nuclear weapons the US could eventually deploy on its 60 strategic bombers, as well as what additional bombers the US could deploy above those allowed by New START.
But in rough terms, the US could add some 1120 warheads (400 ICBM and 720 SLBM warheads) to the US nuclear deterrent and do so over a period of four years. The US total deployed warheads would reach around 2670-2900 depending upon how many bomber weapons the US decided to deploy, but it still would be significantly short of the Russian deployed numbers and markedly lower in terms of warheads on day-today alert.
Further worrisome is that with China in the mix with an estimated 1000 warheads deployed by 2030 and 1500 warheads to be deployed by 2035, the US could be facing a combined Russia and China strategic or long-range nuclear force of around 6000 warheads, double the number of the US deployed force of strategic nuclear weapons even after a hypothetical US buildup that doubles our current strategic arsenal. Whether this matters is to be determined by US civilian and military leaders, but as both SASC’s Senator Fisher of Nebraska and HASC’s Representative Lamborn have emphasized, the US needs to have that discussion now and determine what our future capability should be.
Within this context, many observers would naturally look to arms control to limit the scope of the Russia and China growth potential, especially in the post-New START time frame which would be beyond February 2026, which is only 32 months into the future. Given the US might not be interested in building up its strategic nuclear arsenal, what are the prospects for reducing Russia and China to a combined no greater level of deployed warheads than that of the US, England and France?
The prospects are not good as Russia shows no sign of going beyond the New START agreement after it expires. Russia also cheats on all its arms agreements and as such makes it difficult to get Russian agreement on robust verification and transparency measures. The US arms control community believes Russia is adhering to the numerical New START limits, and thus hold out hope a new deal could be in the cards. However, missing from this analysis is a recognition that Russia, unlike the US, has other strategic systems under deployment that are not limited by New START and implicitly would not be limited in any future agreement. And that Russia violates all the treaties it signs such as the INF agreement of 1987.
Plus, Russia’s formidable theater and regional/short-range nuclear systems further complicate and destabilize the current and future strategic environment. Given the Senate’s role in approving any such future arms agreement, any deal that locks in a serious imbalance in international strategic nuclear environment will not be approved.
Thus, given the current dis-interest of China in arms control agreements of any kind, and the contradictory statements of Russia as to its adherence to the current New START agreement, to say nothing of possible future deals, it is difficult to imagine what possible agreement would be in the cards for three let alone five major nuclear powers.
Again, if numbers of warheads matter, and Russia and China would not agree to a combined ceiling no greater that of the United States, perhaps the best the US could hope for is a combination of better transparency and also an agreement to channel nuclear weapons deployments in certain “stabilizing” directions, five of which are discussed here.
Objectives
The first objective might be to secure full transparency from all nuclear powers of the number and type of both strategic SNDVs and warheads. This would most importantly apply to China. One cannot have an arms control deal if the weapons held by one of the party’s is unknown. Transparency doesn’t limit the warheads a nation can deploy but it could highlight what objectives such a nation might be pursuing. Especially that China will continue to insist a nuclear force of 1500 warheads has the same purpose of a force of 200-400 warheads.
The second objective might be to secure an agreed upon overall ceiling for nuclear weapons, including those deployed as theater or regional nuclear weapons, and the stockpile of reserved warheads that could readily be added to a nation’s nuclear forces. One could then have the freedom to mix the deployed forces each nation possessed. Such a task is not going to be easy, given the difficulty of measuring theater or short-range nuclear forces in that their small size makes deception and camouflage far easier.
But a serious effort in this area might simply clarify what verification measures are accepted now compared to those actually required to verifiably limit theater systems, and that would tell the US how far our negotiators have to go to get an agreement that will be taken seriously. Previously adopted verification measures for strategic systems under arms agreements such as START I could also be revisited and re-adopted, even if no new overall agreement is adopted but “transparency” is being improved. What we might also make clear is that any limits on theater systems is very difficult and cannot be achieved given current technology and verification capabilities, further clarifying that such objectives as “global zero” and nuclear abolishment is simply not a realistic goal.
The third objective might be to drive nuclear deployments--whatever the total number-- in certain preferred, stabilizing directions. A full or partial ban on multiple warhead land-based missiles was adopted by the START II agreement signed by Presidents Yeltsin and Bush, (41), but rejected in 1999 by the Russian Duma which added an additional condition of the START II treaty that would have required the US to keep all missile defense work “in the laboratory.” But it is certainly worth the effort to seek a partial or full ban on such deployments even if a total overall ceiling cannot be agreed to.
The fourth objective might be to seek agreement to allow more warheads to be deployed at sea as opposed to land-based systems, under any future arms deal, given that sea-based systems are on alert or at sea on patrol at a rate far less than that of solid-fueled ICBMs that remain on alert some 99+% of the time.
Now the benefit of the ICBM alert rate is that there need not be any sudden shift in ICBM readiness in a crisis or conventional conflict, thus signaling to an adversary that there is no movement toward escalation. But putting more of overall warheads on submarines and single warhead ICBMs would stabilize the strategic environment, as it makes more secure a nation’s “retaliatory” capability but does not give--under reasonable assumptions--a nuclear armed state a pre-emptive, disarming strike capability.
A fifth objective might be to adopt confidence and transparency measures such as portal monitoring, where the treaty parties agree to have monitors at factory doors noting the number of missiles, or submarines, and strategic bombers, which are being produced. This would give each treaty partner a better knowledge of the capabilities of the other, and the speed with which new systems are being produced.
However, whatever the future of arms control, it does not change the five key nuclear challenges we still face: (1) a nuclear deterrent that needs rebuilding or we go out of the nuclear business; (2) a conventional capability that holds only if nuclear deterrence is maintained; (3) a requirement that defense budgets be approved on time as we have no room for significant program delays; (4) two nuclear armed adversaries that believe “nuclear deterrence” is actually supportive of armed aggression under “escalate to win” doctrines; and (5) a requirement to integrate missile defense, conventional and nuclear modernization, cyber and space.
So, while arms control has helped markedly change the size of the nuclear arsenals held by two of the five NPT recognized nuclear powers, arms deals will not address the current nuclear challenges America faces. Nor will abolition as it is not in the cards for multitude decades at best.
The US has no choice: modernize our nuclear TRIAD forces in a timely manner; integrate them with space, cyber, missile defense and conventional force deployments; and develop a credible nuclear deterrent strategy across the spectrum of conflict that adversary nuclear powers will respect.