Crispin Rovere is a PhD Candidate at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU.
One way of predicting the future of extended nuclear deterrence (END) is by measuring its utility at present. To what extent does it shape the strategic environment or influence the behaviour of allies? To begin with, END does not dissuade allies from seeking nuclear weapons of their own.
Israel maintains them in secret. Its nuclear arsenal inspires other countries across the Middle East to seek nuclear weapons, undermines sanctions against that pursuit, and destroys any hope of implementing a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. On a long enough time scale, it is not credible for Israel to maintain a regional nuclear monopoly.
One wonders what strategic advantage Israel's nuclear weapons confer that adequately compensate for all these obvious drawbacks, especially given Israel would, if it disarmed, remain firmly protected under America's END. Israel maintains its capability even though END is most credible in a region where none of the states subject to a US nuclear attack could retaliate against the American homeland.
In Europe, it is hard to imagine what imminent threat is posed to British or French sovereignty that justifies maintaining an independent nuclear deterrent. As Hugh White points out, Russia is not going to embark upon a war of conquest against continental Europe, and nuclear weapons would not be employed to defeat it if Russia did. Frühling & Schreer's argument that even a small reduction in the risk of a major war is a good thing only holds if a nuclear war never occurs. As unhappy as such an equation might be, three major conventional wars between non-nuclear states are preferable to a single nuclear one.
The US uses END as its justification for maintaining nuclear forces substantially larger than required for minimum deterrence. If the US were to disarm, the argument goes, nuclear proliferation will become more likely because its allies, devoid of a nuclear umbrella, will pursue nuclear options themselves.
This policy creates cynicism towards the NPT; an increasing belief that, far from being a road map to a nuclear free world, it is a document enshrining nuclear weapons as a God-given right for some, but which no one else has any right to acquire. This status quo, along with the END argument that underpins it, is wholly unsustainable.
The NPT is further undermined by double standards toward those (such as India) existing outside the NPT but who have nevertheless become treated as NPT nuclear weapons states, minus any of the responsibilities or obligations that come with it.
The existence of END damages nuclear disarmament directly by providing cover for other nuclear armed states. Russia remains largely free of criticism so long as it maintains parity reductions with the US. Other nuclear powers claim they will participate in multilateral reductions once the two Cold War arsenals are reduced closer to minimum deterrence levels, but since this cannot happen while END exists, they get a free ride.
The US believes its revised negative security assurance reassures non-nuclear states while maintaining nuclear deterrence against perceived proliferators. This is nonsense. In no way does the revised negative security assurance have this effect, and in some important ways it causes considerable harm. Short of a country being a launch site for a nuclear attack, there is no scenario in which the US would conduct a nuclear strike against a non-nuclear weapons state; the assurance that it will not do so is simply stating the obvious.
Also, the overt exclusion of Iran and North Korea from the negative security assurance is a serious error. Everyone knows that the US is never going to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on either country, so the only practical effect of the revised assurance is to lend legitimacy to the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. Surely if there is one legitimate reason for acquiring nuclear weapons, it is somebody openly threatening to use them against you.
The nuclear taboo that constrains nuclear powers and limits the utility of nuclear weapons holds similar implications for END. Since no state actor can achieve desired foreign policy goals by nuking non-nuclear weapon states, END is unnecessary. Its removal would assist disarmament efforts and strengthen the nuclear taboo even further.
It is also the case that non-nuclear weapon states are seldom deterred or successfully blackmailed by another's nuclear arsenal. Argentina was not deterred by Britain's nuclear weapons in the Falklands, and China was not deterred by America's nuclear weapons in Korea. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Truman Administration was perpetually dismayed by just how unfazed the Soviet Union was by America's global nuclear monopoly; the Soviet Union continued to maintain all of its political demands and even blockaded Berlin.
END is a self-serving policy with little, if any, benefit to the common strategic good. It is saddled with many drawbacks, in particular providing political cover for major nuclear powers and undermining nuclear disarmament efforts.
The argument that other countries will acquire nuclear weapons without END is unpersuasive. By far the greatest constraint on horizontal proliferation is the NPT, and its continued degradation, in part due to END, is one of the biggest threats to nuclear disarmament worldwide.
The Nuclear Reactions column is supported by the Nuclear Security Project of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, as part of a wider partnership between the NSP and the Lowy Institute.
Photo by Flickr user windy_sydney
