USAF photo Protracted Nuclear War The Reagan Pentagon wanted to plan for it. Then, all hell broke loose.

By Richard Halloran

uring a trip to Europe in the weapons will be used, or aggressor and 1980s, Undersecretary of De- defender will be totally destroyed.” D fense Fred C. Iklé sat down to Ever since the 1945 atomic bomb- breakfastbreakfast oneone morningmorning andand fellfell intointo a ings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, discussiondiscussion aboutabout howhow a nuclearnuclear warwar strategic thinkers such as Iklé have mightmight bebe fought.fought. AfterAfter severalseveral minutes,minutes, struggled to imagine how a nuclear war thethe RReaganeagan AAdministrationdministration aaideide ppaused,aused, might unfold, even as they sought to thenthen said,said, “Of“Of course,course, nonenone ofof usus re-re- shape doctrine and procure weapons allyally knowsknows whatwhat hehe isis talkingtalking about,about, for fighting such a war. For many rea- becausebecause wewe havehave nono empiricalempirical feedbackfeedback sons, that intellectual exertion reached onon nuclearnuclear war.”war.” a climax in the early 1980s. Iklé, a well-known nuclear theorist, In retrospect, the pivot was the new laterlater expandedexpanded onon thatthat thought,thought, writ-writ- Reagan Administration’s concept of inging tthathat thethe “instantaneous“instantaneous terror”terror” ofof “protracted nuclear war,” often cast nuclearnuclear warwar “is“is soso unfathomableunfathomable thatthat in shorthand as “fighting and winning peoplepeople tendtend toto thinkthink aboutabout itit inin all-all- nuclear war.” It was hardly a military or-nothingor-nothing fashion;fashion; eithereither nono nuclearnuclear secret; almost as soon as they arrived in Washington in 1981, Reagan of- ficials began discussing a military Top: B-52G bombers take fl ight. Left: campaign after a potential breakdown The May 30, 1982 article from the New in deterrence. York Times. Surrender was out, said these of- fi cials, as was suicidal all-out retali- ation, so some more-limited, episodic nuclear doctrine was needed. Better to plan for it. 56 AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2008 In this view, such planning was a Department policy-makers, in a new might fail and the US might have to logical extension of the deterrence that five-year defense plan, have accepted wage nuclear war; Bruce G. Blair of had been in place for decades. Why, the premise that nuclear conflict with the Brookings Institution; and Alan they thought, should the US be forced the could be protracted Vick of the RAND Corp. to choose between doing nothing or and have drawn up their first strategy The debate was unlike any other in committing suicide? If the USSR knew for fighting such a war.” universities or government. Iklé, a full- the US had retaliatory options, it would The piece, noting that US officials fledged member of the nuclear priest- only strengthen deterrence. believed that nuclear deterrence could hood, acknowledged in his 2006 book, Others, however, found such talk fail and a long war result, said US Annihilation From Within, that much horrifying. To them, anything that armed forces were ordered to prepare of the discussion “took the form of an made nuclear war seem less than for nuclear counterattacks against abstract and cold-blooded theorizing doomsday made it more likely that the Soviet Union “over a protracted of an eerily academic nature.” somebody might try it. Some even period.” The kicker was that the US The debate consumed forests of mistook the Reagan team’s planning as “must prevail and be able to force the newsprint and hours of television time. preparation to initiate a nuclear war. Soviet Union to seek earliest termina- Perhaps the key dispute was whether tion of hostilities on terms favorable there could be any plausible theory of Backtracking to the .” victory in nuclear warfare. A political backlash erupted and With the Administration’s nuclear The traditionalist view was that, soon Reagan himself was backtrack- vision out in the open, a vigorous when it came to nuclear war, a tie game ing. When asked during a March 1982 debate ensued. was the best that could be hoped for, press conference whether nuclear war Or rather, it continued. This was a and even then, the US lost. was winnable, he responded: “I don’t time of deep argument over all things Harold Brown, a renowned nuclear believe there could be any winners” nuclear. Congress and the Adminis- physicist who had served as Secretary and “everybody would be a loser.” In tration were going at each other over of Defense in the Carter Administra- April 1982, Reagan declared force- the MX (later, Peacekeeper) ICBM, tion, put it in the starkest possible fully, “A nuclear war cannot be won especially its basing mode, and over terms. “The destruction of more than and must never be fought.” plans to deploy US Army Pershing II 100 million people in each of the Behind the scenes, however, nuclear theater-range ballistic missiles and US United States, the Soviet Union, and planners churned away. Indeed, an of- Air Force Ground-Launched Cruise the European nations could take place ficial embrace of “protracted nuclear Missiles in Western Europe to counter during the first half-hour of a nuclear war” was an essential element in the the Soviet SS-20 missile force. war,” Brown wrote after he left the classified Fiscal Year 1984-1988 De- It was an era of disputes over in 1981. “Such a war would fense Guidance. The 125-page Defense B-1 bomber, which had been killed be a catastrophe not only indescrib- Guidance was drawn up by Pentagon by President Carter but resurrected able but unimaginable,” he added. officials in 1981-82 and signed by by President Reagan in 1981, and the “It would be unlike anything that has Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Wein- “stealth” bomber, later called the B-2 taken place on this planet since human berger in March 1982. Spirit. It was an era of deliberations life began.” Moreover, Defense Guidance was over the Trident ballistic-missile-fir- blessed by the White House with ing submarine and its planned D-5 Dig a Hole Decision Direc- missile, a bigger, more powerful, and A strong and vocal minority held tive 32, signed by Reagan on May more accurate successor to the C-4 a different view. Thomas K. Jones, 20, 1982. The recently declassified weapon. a senior engineering official in the NSDD stated, “The modernization of It’s hard, after the passage of a Weinberger Pentagon, argued in an our strategic nuclear forces ... shall quarter-century, to characterize the interview with the receive first priority.” It continued: debate of those days. It didn’t break that nuclear war would not be the end “The United States will enhance its down along the predictable lines of of days. It would be bad but surviv- strategic nuclear deterrent by develop- Republican vs. Democrat, conservative able. In Jones’ estimate, the United ing a capability to sustain protracted vs. liberal, military vs. civilian. About States could recover from a nuclear nuclear conflict.” the only constant in the brawl was that exchange with the Soviet Union in That was followed by NSDD-75, few professed to have a monopoly on two to four years. He put great store signed on Jan. 17, 1983, which un- truth. Almost everyone knew he was by civil defense. Americans would derscored deterrence. It said Soviet groping in the dark. dig holes in the ground, cover them calculations about war must always A key part of the debate had always with wooden doors, and blanket the see “outcomes so unfavorable to the been out of public view, among a hand- whole thing with three feet of dirt. USSR that there would be no incen- ful of strategic wise men often called “If there are enough shovels to go tive for Soviet leaders to initiate an “nuclear theologians,” who dove deep around,” he said, “everybody’s going attack.” into nuclear arcana. That brotherhood to make it.” Jones’ comment did not The substance of the Pentagon docu- included (but was not limited to) Paul reflect mainline thinking in the Pen- ment was soon leaked to the New York Bracken, a Yale political scientist; tagon, but it did reflect a willingness Times. My 2,500-word piece about it Bernard Brodie, another political sci- to ponder what might happen should appeared in the May 30 edition under entist at Yale and father of the concept deterrence fail. the headline, “Pentagon Draws Up of nuclear deterrence; Herman Kahn, In a third view, Michael Howard, the First Strategy for Fighting a Long the strategic analyst known for “think- Oxford don and later military historian Nuclear War.” It began: “Defense ing the unthinkable” that deterrence at Yale, was optimistic that nuclear war AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2008 57 went to great lengths to make the point that the Reagan Administration was not planning a nuclear assault on the Soviet Union, that neither Reagan nor his top aides thought that nuclear war would DOD photoWard by R.D. be “winnable” in any ordinary sense of the word, and that he was doing his job by planning for the most demanding nuclear contingency. He declared more than once in public, Caspar Weinberger, “You show me a Secretary of Defense Secretary of Defense, at a DOD news conference who is planning not to prevail and I’ll in 1985. show you a Secretary of Defense who ought to be impeached.” Weinberger pressed the point in a speech at the Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pa. “We must,” he said, “have a capability for a ‘pro- tracted’ response to demonstrate that our strategic forces could survive Soviet strikes over an extended—that is to say, protracted—period.” He made many such speeches. With each utterance, Weinberger seemed could be avoided altogether. “The devel- passive measures, to the United States to become more deeply enmeshed in opment of nuclear weapons,” he said, and its allies.” the complexities and “negatives” of “has given us a chance for the indefinite “Maintain in reserve, under all Defense Guidance. future of preventing the outbreak of circumstances, nuclear offensive ca- The Reagan nuclear stance continued major war. ... One cannot rule it out pabilities so that the United States to draw flak, and not just from tradi- as a possibility, but our very dread of would never emerge from a nuclear tional political opponents. Toward the nuclear war makes it a highly remote war without nuclear weapons while end of his tour in 1982, Air Force Gen. possibility.” still threatened by enemy nuclear David C. Jones, Chairman of the Joint When Reagan became President in forces.” Chiefs of Staff, told the Washington 1981, he brought to the White House The final point was key, putting the Post, “I don’t see much of a chance of limited knowledge of nuclear affairs. “protracted” in “protracted nuclear nuclear war being limited or protracted. It was much the same with Wein- war.” I see great difficulty in keeping any berger, a lawyer and a relative novice kind of exchange between the US and in security policies. Even so, Reagan Press Coverage the Soviets from escalating.” and Weinberger presided over a shift The disclosure in the Times was im- Jones, not always one of Wein- of doctrine by relying on specialists mediately picked up by network televi- berger’s favorites, also told military such as Iklé, a Swiss-born thinker who sion. With graphic film of nuclear tests, writers: “If you try to do everything supervised the drafting of Defense the TV reports made a splash. Not all to fight a protracted nuclear war, then Guidance. DOD officials were disturbed by the you end up with the potential of a That document specified six nuclear coverage; some suggested it might have bottomless pit.” He added, “We can’t objectives: a deterrent effect on the Kremlin. do everything. I personally would not “Promote deterrence by being Weinberger, however, was dis- spend a lot of money on a protracted convincingly capable of responding pleased. He invited me to breakfast, nuclear war.” to a first strike in such a way as to during which he voiced two com- Indeed, high cost was a main draw- deny the Soviets (or any other ad- plaints. First, he was unhappy that back in the protracted war concept. versary) their political and military someone had leaked classified mate- First, the nation needed large numbers objectives.” rial. Second, he complained—with ci- of secure, accurate, and flexible weap- “Minimize the extent to which vility—that the headline on the article ons. Even more important, the con- Soviet military nuclear threats could made it seem that the US was plotting cept required a survivable command, be used in a crisis to coerce the United an offensive nuclear war against the control, and communications net, one States and our allies.” Soviet Union. He considered that part that would be filled with redundancy. “Maintain the capability to sup- of the newspaper’s coverage to have Without it, no one could be sure the port Alliance commitments.” been misleading. US could unleash its weapons under “Should deterrence fail, deny the Weinberger was an erudite and like- the demanding conditions of war. Soviet Union (or any other adversary) able man, possessed of a quick mind and Bracken, the Yale nuclear theolo- a military victory at any level of con- dry, self-deprecating sense of humor. gian, was sharp in his criticism. He flict and force earliest termination of As Secretary of Defense, he quickly wrote that “questions of how nuclear hostilities on terms favorable to the became the leading advocate for the weapons would really be used are ques- United States.” Reagan nuclear posture. tions of irremediable insanity.” Blair “Limit damage, by active and Over the next months, Weinberger of the Brookings Institution asserted, 58 AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2008 with understatement, that “preparing forces and command networks for protracted intercontinental nuclear war is not palatable to significant segments of the defense community.” The political attacks continued. By late summer 1982, Weinberger was moved to dispatch to 30 American and 40 foreign publications a letter stating that he was “increasingly concerned Thomas Jones, a senior with news accounts that portray this engineering official in the Administration as planning to wage a Weinberger Pentagon. protracted nuclear war, or seeking to acquire a ‘warfighting’ capability.” In the letter, he argued: “We must have a capability for a survivable and enduring response—to demonstrate that our strategic forces could survive Soviet strikes over an extended period.” The letter sparked a memorable exchange between Weinberger and Theodore H. Draper, the historian and social critic, in the New York Review of Books. When the written combat ended, Weinberger had provided an authorita- discriminately, ... is the most perverse saki in 1945 to Weinberger and Draper tive Reagan Administration view and and dangerous nuclear temptation in 1983 was long and tortuous. After Draper had summed up the position of that has been dangled before us in a World War II, many strategic plan- many Administration critics. long time. ... To pretend that moral ners saw nuclear weapons as merely The argument that began in November distinctions can be made between al- bigger versions of the bombs used in 1982 reached a crescendo in mid-1983. legedly different types of nuclear wars conventional operations. President Weinberger, who had a combative streak, is already taking a most slippery and Truman viewed them as weapons of last wrote Draper that “each and every as- menacing step toward breaking the resort. President Eisenhower tended sertion you have made is absolutely nuclear barrier.” to view them as weapons of early incorrect and at variance with the truth.” resort. President Kennedy embraced Moreover, he said, Draper’s assertions In the End, In the Mainstream “flexible” nuclear employment, while showed “fundamental misunderstanding Draper, however, finished with a President Johnson tended to emphasize of US nuclear policy as it has evolved” grace note, rare in American politics assured destruction. since World War II. then and even more rare today: “As Under President Nixon, Secretary Weinberger went on, “Our histori- you see, I have not been persuaded by of Defense James R. Schlesinger cal objective of deterrence is founded your letter, and I rather think that you devised “limited nuclear options.” on our belief that there could be no will not be persuaded by mine. But I President Ford continued the evolu- winners in a nuclear war. ... We are cannot end without acknowledging tion of policy in that direction. By the under no illusion that a nuclear war my deep respect for your willing- end of President Carter’s term, the US would be anything less than an abso- ness to engage in an open exchange had adopted Presidential Directive 59, lute catastrophe.” He suggested that of views with a professedly critical which, according to Harold Brown, Draper take the time to read the annual private citizen. It is an act in the best dealt with “how a nuclear war would reports of the previous five Defense democratic tradition, and I wish to actually be fought by both sides if Secretaries, after which “you will salute you for it, whatever the merits deterrence fails.” The US, he said, observe that the policy I have enunci- of your case or mine.” planned “to employ strategic nuclear ated rests squarely in the mainstream Eventually, the debate blew over. forces selectively ... as well as by all- of US strategic thought.” Pentagon officials stopped talking about out retaliation.” In a long, occasionally testy re- “winnable” nuclear war. Critics had In the end, it seemingly was not so sponse, Draper disputed Weinberger’s difficulty finding new cracks to ex- large a step from Brown’s PD-59 to claim, noting, “You yourself have ploit. President Reagan himself pushed Weinberger’s Defense Guidance and made the distinction between the re- nuclear arms control initiatives with its theoretical acceptance of protracted quirements for fighting and winning undeniable sincerity and vigor. With nuclear war. Indeed, as Weinberger a nuclear war and those for merely in the Kremlin, contended with Draper, the Reagan deterring it.” perceptions of the Soviet Union grew approach rested in the mainstream of Draper emphasized what he saw more benign. historical US strategic thought, even as the danger inherent in calibrating The trail from Hiroshima and Naga- if it didn’t appear to be that way. ■ the relative acceptability of different types of nuclear war. “This vision of a Richard Halloran, formerly a New York Times foreign correspondent in Asia and a controlled nuclear war, capable of hit- military correspondent in Washington, D.C., is a freelance writer based in Honolulu. ting only military targets precisely and His most recent article, “Guam, All Over Again,” appeared in the January issue. AIR FORCE Magazine / March 2008 59