Must Try Harder

In a draft document, the Pentagon has laid out its Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations, which directs the circumstances under which the USA may use nuclear weapons. The document, expected to be signed within a few weeks, tries to satisfy the Bush administration's wish to bolster America's security by improving the deterrence of its nuclear arsenals. As such, it departs from the existing doctrine (laid out in 1995) by threatening preemptive strikes against enemies - state or non-state - preparing a strike using chemical or biological weapons, noting specifically that this would be an option against weapons facilities in hardened bunkers.

Two points come to mind. Firstly, while the draft points out that the deterrence must be credible, it still fails in this respect. Secondly, this doctrine actually seeks political gains by its failure to gain credibility.

While the theoretical prevention of an attack by biological or chemical weapons by a nuclear strike may seem plausible at first, such a strike would first require unfailing and unimpeachable intelligence: a stretch by all accounts. Even if the threat and targets were known, the prospect of striking such facilities with existing "very large, very dirty, big nuclear weapons", as Donald Rumsfeld called them, would almost certainly lead to unconscionable collateral damage. Picture the likely scenario after such an implausible 'success': the American government blows away a large chunk of foreign soil on an allegation of preparations for a WMD attack. Who would believe it's claims of impending destruction and a lack of alternatives? The president and government would likely be replaced at the next available opportunity. The draft doctrine has not been created for the use of current nuclear weapons, but (as its writers hope) for the use of future ones: particularly the 'bunker-busters', of which Congress has refused to allow development. The doctrine is worthless without the next generation of smaller, more capable nukes. And such weapons are not forthcoming, however much the doctrine tries to reshape political opinion in their favour.

This draft document both fails to perceive what is acceptable to the American public (as loosely represented by Congress), and what is possible using current intelligence and nuclear capabilities. Its deterrence fails alongside these stark inadequacies. Nuclear weapons will not, in the forseeable future, prevent a determined and capable enemy from attacking America with chemical or biological weapons. Hostile states are already deterred by the America's conventional forces. Terrorist cells, working amidst large civilian populations, will not be targeted by any large-scale weapons, conventional or not, and they know it. Such nuclear posturing is simply a waste of time.