In early February, the Donald Trump Administration presented its vision of USA’s nuclear policy (Nuclear Posture Review, NPR 2018), which is a formalized written version of the recent 180 turn of America’s strategy in this field. (Continuation. Part 1 here).
As a whole, during the short period of stability of the monopolar world order in, USA have become sort of the metaphorical white elephant: they need to keep it as the regalia of a superpower, but they don’t really want to waste money on maintaining it. During the time after the USSR’s collapse, the only new nuclear weapon in USA is the B61-11 bomb, refashioned from old B61-7s in small numbers and made for destruction of extremely fortified underground targets. This began during Obama’s presidency modernizing the B61 bomb family into a correct-course high precision B61-12 nuclear bomb.
The new bomb will have an inertial homing system that will allow circular deviation of around 30 meters (the trials had it deviate only around 5 meters from the aimed point), the new tail flight control surfaces and the smallest yield in the B61 bombs family of only 50 kiloton. The first half of the following decade, part of the bombs from the current arsenal will be modernized to this standard, while the others, aside from B61-11, will be disposed of. In addition, the 1.2 megaton B83 bomb will decommissioned.
The prospect delivery system for the B61-12 will be, among others, the Fifth Generation Fighter F-35A, which is ordered by four out of vie European countries in the NATO's nuclear sharing policy (except Germany, but that question is being discussed). Thus USA are not planning to stop keeping their tactical nukes in Europe.
And NPR 2018 once more confirms this completely. It openly states that NATO needs nuclear weapons in Europe in order “contain Russia.”
However, the confirmation of the B61-12 plans, as well as other aforementioned programmes was expected, NPR 2018 had two surprises. First of them was the declaration of the near future plans to provide the Trident II submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) with “low-yield” charges so that they would give USA an “additional step” on the escalation ladder. They did not announce just how low yield will the charges will be, but presumably 50 kiloton or less (currently Trident IIs are armed with charges of 100 or 475 kiloton).
This plan raises a whole series of questions.
This declared “one-level” response to, for example Russian tactical nuclear weapons, specifically with a SLBM – is a poor choice: when the opposing side will see the launch from a submarine, it may be considered the start of a full-on attack, and without waiting for that “low-yield” explosion, will launch a counter-attack.
On the other hand, using SLBM against any “pariah states” is a good fit, because they usually don’t have any reliable detection systems for missile attacks and a ballistic missile is not something they can intercept (unlike an attack from a bomber or cruise missile), it’s also a sudden attack. The low-yield will mean that the collateral damage will be minimal (that is why the B61-12 is also getting the weakest charge), which also lowers the moral threshold of using nuclear weapons in the eyes of American and international public opinion.
One could also make an interesting theory on the lightweight Trident II. It’s obvious that the missile will be outfitted with one “low-yield” warhead: putting a dozen of these goes against the original idea. At the same time, when the yield is lower, the question of precision arises front and center. Right now Trident II, with the use of inertial guiding and astrocorrection has a possible deviation of around 380 meters, with additional GPS correction – around 90 meters. This is probably the limit for unguided warheads. However, with a low-yield charge this may be insufficient to reliably destroy a reinforced underground target.
Doesn’t this all mean that the Americans are trying to intensify work on the maneuvering block under the cover of a “low-yield charge” and “minimizing collateral damage”?
Such a warhead is more like a common “cone” so the single stage structure would be a necessity. And it has no high precision, but is capable of conducting maneuvers to avoid anti-air defenses, so intercepting it is a hard task, if not impossible. That’s why, at the end of the Cold War, Trident II already had a project for maneuvering warhead Mk4 with circular deviation around 20 meters and the ability to go through the “USSR Prospective Missile Defenses.” A missile with that kind of outfitting would be useful for USA today and in the future rivalry with first order nuclear powers, and not just for precision strikes unto bunkers with evil dictators with minimal damages to the environment.
They also announced the procurement of a new prospective cruise missile for submarines with a nuclear warhead. They are talking about reviving the nuclear Tomahawk, which was always stationed on multi-purpose nuclear submarines, in support of the submarines with ballistic missiles. It is unclear whether they are talking about recreating the Tomahawk, which can be done relatively quickly, or that when creating a new cruise missile for submarines they will include a nuclear version.
In support of the former, there is the political importance of the cruise missile: according to the NPR 2018 and statements by US Defense Secretary, the cruise missile is not just a tool of “escalation for de-escalation” (much better suited then SLBMs), but also a response at the supposed breach of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) by Russia.
The American side, once again repeats their accusations in NPR 2018, stating as fact that Russia is deploying land-based cruise missiles of the banned range, including nuclear warheads. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 lists among its “Measures in response to noncompliance of the Russian Federation with its obligations under the INF Treaty” that USA has already started development of a land-based cruise missile complex, but in the current plans, it is exclusively non-nuclear.
A nuclear response must be the SLBM, which does not fall under the INF Treaty.
In connection to this, we should recall that the prospective American Virginia-class multirole nuclear submarines will be armed with vertical launch pads for 40 cruise missiles (the current ones house only 12). And considering that they plan to build 48 of such submarines, the Ohio-class subs will remain in service for a while, rearmed for cruise missiles (up to 154 on each) and any sub, aside from that, can launch a Tomahawk from its torpedo hatches, the strike capability of America’s submarine fleet rises dramatically.
USA-Russia New Nuclear Strategy
What roles does the new Pentagon document have for Russia? Russia is mentioned multiple times as a strategic competitor to the United States. And the NPR 2018 states that “despite our [USA’s] best efforts to sustain a positive relationship, Russia now perceives the United States and NATO as its principal opponent.”
The previous 2010 NPR presented Russia as a partner, rather than an enemy, the new strategy practically bases everything on the “Russian Threat” in blatant words. This specifically touches upon USA lagging behind in tactical nukes and the necessity to catch up.
In the strategic nuclear triad they also emphasize the significant updates to Russia’s arsenal, including the development of hypersonic maneuvering warheads for ICBMs and the notorious ”intercontinental nuclear torpedo.” One of the NPR 2018’s openly declared idea is that catching up to Russia by analyzing the measure will allow them to take away Russia’s expansionist delusions and establish peace and strategic stability for USA and its allies.
China is given much less space, even though they do mention the possible risk from its direction. Beijing reacted to the document quite harshly, openly criticizing it and declaring that the trumped up accusations are just a cover for building up a nuclear arsenal. By coincidence, a few days before the report, the draft was leaked to the press beforehand, and the official sources of the Chinese Armed Forces published an article calling to significantly increase their nuclear deterrence.
Considering China’s secrecy in this field, this can be equated to an open declaration of a sharp increase of its nuclear potential, which was earlier supported at a minimal level.
Considering that the new heavy ICBMs with separating warheads and new missile submarines, this is no idle threat.
However, the biggest danger in USA’s new nuclear strategy is not in its direct jabs at Russia or any particular country. After all, the Americans updating their nuclear arsenal is inevitable: the have no alternative and the situation of mutual, equal and structured deterrence has no direct threat and can be a foundation of stability and mutual respect.
The real threat lies in the mention of USA‘s nuclear weapons being “flexible“ and fit for use in more situations...
Development of various “low-yield” weapons with low collateral damage from B61-12 to lightweight Trident IIs is clearly aimed not at competing with Russia: if it comes to the Russians and Americans using nuclear weapons against each other, there will be no “collateral damage” to consider nor fussing about the missile’s ecological factors.
Everything points to USA preparing to – purposefully or “just in case” – that the “nuclear taboo” will be broken in this new century’s conflicts with either one of the non-recognized nuclear states, or with some hostile third world country. And the preparations are obvious to the whole world and it is only escalating future conflicts and driving many countries, fearing for their safety, to secretly or openly build up of deterrence forces. The Korean missile crises may seem child’s play in the future, which is completely unfavorable for Russia, who can only watch from the sidelines in this case. And to keep the nuclear gunpowder dry.
Translated by Pavel Shamshiev
