A Military Strategy for Strategic Nuclear Deterrence Through the Year 2010

This paper will address the type of strategic nuclear forces the United States will find most effective to best achieve nuclear deterrence over the next twenty years. I will use the approved National War College Framework for Military Strategy as a tool for examining the political objectives of our nuclear deterrent policy, the military objectives that will support those political objectives in the outyears, and the capabilities and vulnerabilities of both superpower arsenals. Finally, I will define the force structure required by the strategic plan to accomplish our objectives and discuss the potential results. Before looking at the political objectives of our deterrent policy, I feel it appropriate to point out the curious aspects of discussing a military strategy that depends for its success on never being proven out. In many cases, the successful application of a military strategy requires hostilities to exist -- the military strategy of the Allied Powers to defeat the Axis Powers in World War If being a case in point -- and involves the use of force to cause the enemy to do something he would not otherwise want to do. Judging our nuclear deterrent strategy of the past four decades as successful implies that the Soviets would have initiated a nuclear war had our strategic forces not existed. This is an implication that absolutely cannot be proven to be true, yet it is the very basis of our stated need for a triad of forces capable of devastating the Soviet Union. Whatever future strategy the United States pursues to deter a major nuclear war with the Soviets, it will only be successful if such a war does not occur. Therefore the strategy must be one of war prevention. This does not mean, however, that we should concentrate on cost issues and ignore the warfighting capabilities of these forces. Rather, we must field affordable forces that guarantee a great amount of credible retaliatory capability regardless of the mode of attack the Soviets choose.