AN EDITORIAL Between Ace and Deuce

By John T. Correll, EDITOR IN CHIEF

T. Gen. James A. Abrahamson, Director of the Strategic built. The essential difference in these strategies is the choice L Defense Initiative Organization, says that support for SDI of targets, the amount of strategic defense provided for, and the is diminished by misunderstandings based on "bumper-sticker sort of forces required. logic." A similar—and potentially more dangerous—strain of The addition of defensive features, for example, complicates intellectual innocence can be seen in the ongoing reevaluation the enemy's targeting problems and provides some protection of basic defense strategy, which is an inescapable corollary to in case deterrence fails and an attack occurs. Better cards in the SDI debate. the strategic deck are the more complex postures referred to as Too often, our strategy options are depicted as a choice of Damage-Limiting strategies. They incorporate not only a mea- extremes: a perfect defensive shield that frees us from all fear sure of defense but also some targeting of military assets as of nuclear weapons, or else the all-or-nothing retaliatory doc- well. trine known as Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). These At the high end of the theoretical deterrent deck is full concepts represent only an ace and a deuce from the strategic Counterforce, with adequate capability to target all of the deck. In between, a great many more realistic cards can be hardest of military assets with confidence. This is a very costly found. approach, requiring great sophistication in capabilities, dis- Up to World War II, military strategy was concerned mainly position, and support, and one the United States is not likely to with how to win wars. There were, to be sure, instances when pursue or achieve. disputes among nations were decided by possession of power The classic approach is for strategies to prescribe forces, but rather than by direct use of it, but avoidance of war was a by- in reality the kind of forces available also prescribes and limits product of strategy, not a central objective. strategy. Forces with less capability have fewer strategy op- The nuclear age, however, required a new kind of strategy, tions. Given weapons that lack the accuracy and lethality to be one designed to prevent war and at the same time protect the effective against hardened military targets, a force may be interests of nations. This was the concept of deterrence— restricted to a "city-bashing" Countervalue targeting doc- maintenance of sufficient power to forestall any thought of trine. Strong, secure forces are less likely to be tempted by aggression on the part of an adversary. A family of implement- high-risk tactics, such as Launch on Warning. ing strategies was and is possible under the general heading of The United States has, in recent years, sought its cards from deterrence. the middle of the strategic deck. But as Soviet superhardening Massive Retaliation, a strategy of the 1950s, was a compara- techniques get better and as their ICBMs become more lethal, tively crude approach to deterrence. It relied on all-out exer- a vigorous US strategic modernization effort is imperative. cise of nuclear power to such an extent that the nation had few Otherwise, the Soviet Union will eventually have a command- defensive moves short of general war. Every confrontation had ing Counterforce capability, while we are left with strategic to be met with the threat of massive retaliatory attack. Even at options that amount to little more than MAD. a time when the United States had clear nuclear supremacy, SDI is a research and development program, not a set of fully that was inadequate. This led, in the 1960s, to the search for perceived capabilities that will be ready for operational em- "Flexible Response." The major outcome was greatly in- ployment anytime soon. Perhaps SDI will someday yield tech- creased attention to conventional forces. A number of strate- nologies that permit us to replace deterrent strategies with gic deterrent concepts to succeed Massive Retaliation defensive ones. So far, this possibility is only a goal, and a emerged, too. One of these was MAD, but it was pretty much distant one at that. the same old dog wearing a new collar. Knowledgeable sources say that defensive technology is MAD is a minimalist strategy. All it requires—and all it moving ahead fast, and that is good. But strategic defense, like allows—is that after sustaining an attack ourselves, we be able MAD, need not be an isolated strategy in itself. Its most to devastate Soviet cities in retaliation. Sample figures once promising features can be blended, as they come along, into forecast potential destruction of thirty percent of the Soviet broader strategies. Even a partial defense against ballistic population and seventy-five percent of Soviet industry. Since missiles, for example, could greatly enhance our current pos- military assets, many of which would be hardened, need not be ture of deterrence. targeted, weapons and forces for MAD are relatively inexpen- Meanwhile, it would be a huge mistake to slacken efforts on sive. Not much is required in the way of strategic defense or modernization of the strategic triad of ICBMs, SLBMs, and command and control. It is a reflexive revenge strategy, with manned bombers. In the era of nuclear parity, our doctrine no no selective or measured options. longer calls for strategic supremacy, or even for superiority. In the spectrum of strategic postures. MAD can be seen We do not have to hold the ace necessarily, but we must have either as a self-contained strategy, complete in itself, or as a some cards better than the deuce. Much depends on the hand foundation on which more flexible deterrent strategies can be our opponent is prepared to play. •

AIR FORCE Magazine / March 1985