The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy Also by Lawrence Freedman ARMS CONTROL: Management or Reform ARMS CONTROL IN EUROPE ARMS PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED KING DOM: Problems and Prospects THE ATLAS OF GLOBAL STRATEGY BRITAIN AND THE FALKLANDS WAR BRITAIN AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS BRITAIN IN THE WORLD tco-edited with Michael Clarke) THECOLDWAR EUROPE TRANSFORMED THE EVOLUTION OF NUCLEAR STRATEGY THE GULF CONFLICT 1990-91 (with Efraim Karsh) INDEPENDENCE IN CONCERT (with Martin Navias and Nicholas Wheeler) KENNEDY'S WARS MILITARY INTERVENTION IN EUROPE MILITARY POWER IN EURO PE: Essays in Memory ofJonathan Alford THE MILITARY THREAT NUCLEAR WAR AND NUCLEAR PEACE twith Edwina Moreton. Gerald Segal and lohn Baylis) THE POLITICS OF BRITISH DEFENCE POLICY, 1979-1998 POPULATION CHANGE AND EUROPEAN SECURITY (co-edited with lohn Saunders) THE REVOLUTION IN STRATEGIe AFFAIRS SIGNALS OF WAR (with Virginia Gamba-Stonehousei THE SOUTH ATLANTIC CRISIS OF 1982: Implications for Nuclear Crisis Management STRATEGIC COERCION STRATEGIC DEFENCE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE SUPERTERRORISM THE TREATY ON CONVENTIONAL ARMED FORCES IN EUROPE (with Cathetine McArdle Kelleher and [ane Sharpi THE TROUBLED ALLIANCE: Atlantic Relations in the 1980s US INTELLIGENCE AND THE SOVIET STRATEGIC THREAT US NUCLEAR STRATEGY: AReader tco-edited with Philip Bobbitt and Gregory Treverton) WAR: AReader WAR, STRATEGY AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS (co-edited with Paul Hayes and Robert O'Neill) THE WEST AND THE MODERNIZATION OF CHINA The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy Third Edition Lawrence Freedman Professor of WarStudies King's College, London © Lawrence Freedman 2003 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the * Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WH 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First edition published 1981 Reprinted seven times Second edition 1989 Third edition 2003 First published 2003 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, NewYork, N.Y.10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-0-333-97239-7 ISBN 978-0-230-37943-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230379435 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Freedman, Lawrence. The evolution of nuclear strategy/Lawrence Freedman. - 3rd ed. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-333-97239-7 (pbk.) 1. Nuclear warfare. 2. Military policy.1.Title. U263.F698 2003 3SS.02'17-dc21 2002192654 10 9 8 7 6 S 4 3 2 1 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 OS 04 03 Contents Acknowledgements xi Introduction xiii Seetion 1 First and Seeond Thoughts 1 1 The Arrival of the Bomb 3 The transformation of war 3 Strategie bombardment 4 The politieal seienee of airpower 6 The experienee of World War 11 9 Retaliation and the 'V' weapons 12 The atom bomb 13 The strategy of Hiroshima 16 2 Offenee and Defenee 21 The persistenee of the doetrine of strategie bombardment 21 The new strategie environment 23 The possibility of defenee 28 3 Aggression and Retaliation 32 The vital first blow 32 The atom bomb and aggressors 34 Early thoughts on deterrenee 37 Seetion 2 Towards a Poliey of Deterrenee 43 4 Strategy for an Atomic Monopoly 45 Atom bombs and the Ameriean way of war 45 The limits of the bomb 46 First or last resort 49 The bomb enters war plans 51 Atom bombs and the Soviet way of war 53 The Permanently Operating Faetors 56 v vl Contents 5 Strategy for an Atomic Stalcmate 60 The Soviet bomb 60 The 'super' bomb 61 Tactical nuclear weapons 64 NSC-68 66 Korea 68 The conventional strategy 69 6 Massive Retaliation 72 The British conversion 74 The New Look 76 Dulles and massive retaliation 79 The spirit of the offence 84 Section 3 Limited War 87 7 Limited Objectives 89 Consensus on a nuclear strategy 89 The concept of limited war 93 Limited objectives 97 8 Limited Means 101 Limited nuclear war 101 The Soviet view 105 Graduated deterrence 107 On strategy and tactics 111 Sectio n 4 The Fear of Surprise Attack 115 9 The Importance of Being First 117 On winning nuclear wars 117 Prevention or pre-emption 119 The virtues of counter-force 121 The blunting mission 123 Preparing for war 125 A sense of vulnerability 128 The delicacy of the balance 130 10 Sputniks and t he Soviet Threat 131 The impact of Sputnik 131 First strikes for whom? 132 Contents vii Soviet strategy after Stalin 136 The logic of pre-emption 138 Conclusion 144 11 The Technological Arms Race 146 The Killian Report 149 The Gaither Report 151 Mutual fears of surprise attack 153 Technology and stability ISS Section 5 The Strategy of Stable Conflict 163 12 The Formal Strategists 165 Military problems and the scientific method 166 Game Theory 171 Prisoner's Dilemma and Chicken 175 13 Arms Control 179 The strategy of stable conflict 180 Disarmament to arms control 184 The disarmers disarmed 188 14 Bargaining and Escalation 196 Bargaining 196 Escalation 198 Tactics in escalation 199 Escalation dominance 203 The threat that leaves something to chance 206 Section 6 From Counter-Force to Assured Destruction 213 15 City-Avoidance 215 McNamara's band 216 A strategy of multiple options 220 City-avoidance 222 Retreat from city-avoidance 226 16 Assured Destruction 232 Assured destruction 233 Mutual assured destruction 234 viii Contents Disillusion with defence 236 The action-reaction phenomenon 240 17 The Soviet Approach to Deterrence 243 The strategie learning curve 243 Guidelines for stability 245 A 'second-best deterrent' 247 The Ameriean challenge 250 The Brezhnev years 254 18 The Chinese Connection 258 The People's War 259 Atom bombs as paper tigers 261 Seetion 7 The European Dimension 269 19 A Conventional Defence for Europe 271 Theories of conventional war 273 European attitudes 278 Towards a conventional balance 281 Conclusion 286 20 The European Nuclear Option: (i) Anglo-Saxon Views 288 NATO and the Nth problem 289 The British nuclear force 292 21 The European Nuclear Option: (ii) French and German Views 298 Gallois 299 Beaufre 302 De Gaulle 305 German strategy 309 The multilateral force (MLF) 311 Conclusion 313 Seetion 8 Retreat from Assured Destruction 315 22 Military-lndustrial Complexities 317 The McNamara legacy 319 The military-industrial complex 321 Force planning under Nixon 324 Contents ix 23 The Consensus Undermined 328 The Soviet build-up 329 The action-inaction phenomenon 330 The shame of assured destruction 331 New technologies 334 Arms control 338 24 Parity 342 Calm over parity 343 Concern over superiority 346 Perceptions 349 Measuring the balance 352 25 Selective Options 355 If deterrence should 'fail' 355 The search for options 358 'The Schlesinger doctrine' 360 Options for a European war 365 ICBM vulnerability 369 The political science of nuclear strategy 375 26 The Reagan Administration and the Great Nuclear Debate 378 From the second cold war to the second detente 378 The rise of anti-nuclear protest 381 The changing American climate 383 To prevail or countervail 385 The counter-attack 388 From prevailing to defending 391 From defence to arms control 397 Soviet doctrine 400 Extended deterrence 404 27 The Threat Evaporates 407 The revolution in military affairs 411 Mutual assured security 414 The last great debate 418 Elimination or marginalization 424 The return of missile defences 429 Employment options 431 x Contents 28 The Second Nuclear Age 435 Arguing about deterrence 437 Pessimism and proliferation 440 Multipolarity 441 The GulfWar 447 Pre-emption 451 29 Can there be a Nuclear Strategy? 458 Notes 465 Bibliography 519 Subiect Index 549 Name Index 558 Acknowledgements The issues discussed in the following pages have been the common fare of strategists wherever and whenever they have met for almost sixty years. Since 1975, when I began writing this book, I have been fortunate enough, as a member of the staff of, first the International Institute for Strategie Studies, then the Royal Institute of International Affairs and now King's College, London, to have had many opportunities to discuss questions of contemporary strategy with most of the leading members of the profession. In the course of my research I have therefore benefited from discussion and often argument with large numbers of people on aspects of this study. They are too numerous to mention by name but some deserve particular thanks. My thoughts still go back to the late Alastair Buchan, as responsible as anyone for not only encouraging independent analysis of the big issues of war and peace but also for insti­ tutionalizing it at IISS. Not long before his premature death, as I was starting to organize my thoughts on how best to approach this subject, I was able to talk to hirn a number of times.