First strike

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For other uses, see First strike (disambiguation).

In nuclear strategy, a first strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing side is left unable to continue war. The preferred methodology is to attack the opponent's launch facilities and storage depots first. The strategy is called counterforce.

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[edit] Overview

During the Cold War, both superpowers, the U.S., and the U.S.S.R., built massive nuclear arsenals, aimed, to a large extent, at each other. However, they were never used, as after a time, leaders on both sides of the Iron Curtain realized that global thermonuclear war would not be in either power's national interest, as it would probably lead to the destruction of both nations, and possibly nuclear winter or other extinction level events. Therefore, at times, both sides refrained from deploying systems capable of unanswerable nuclear strikes against either side. However, in both nations, there were interests that benefited from the development and maintenance of first-strike weapons systems--what Dwight Eisenhower termed the military-industrial complex; these forces encouraged the constant development of weapons systems of greater accuracy, power, and destruction. In addition, each side doubted the other side's commitment to not deploy first-strike weapons, or even in the event of their deployment, to not strike first. Some first-strike weapons were deployed; however, they were never used.

Of the nuclear powers, only the People's Republic of China and the Republic of India have declarative, unqualified, unconditional no-first-use policies. In 1982, at a special session of General Assembly of United Nations, the USSR pledged not to use nuclear weapons first, regardless of whether its opponents possessed nuclear weapons or not. This pledge was later abandoned by post-Soviet Russia. The United States has a partial, qualified no-first-use policy, stating that they will not use nuclear weapons against states without nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.

Large scale missile defense systems are not first-strike weapons, however, critics view them as first-strike enabling weapons. Ronald Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense Initiative, if it had ever been deployed, would have undermined one of the fundamental premises of mutual assured destruction, and removed the incentive for the U.S. not to strike first. These proposed defense systems, intended to lessen the risk of devastating nuclear war, would lead to it, according to critics.

According to game theory, the non-missile defense side, seeing that a nation was building a defense against a first strike and believing that the other could launch a first strike if it dared, would then launch a pre-emptive first strike while they still had a chance.

[edit] Historical background

First-strike attack, the use of a nuclear first strike capability, was greatly feared during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. At various points, fear of a first strike attack existed on both sides. Misunderstood changes in posture and well understood changes in technology used by either side were usually fuel on the fire of speculation regarding the enemy's intentions.

In the immediate aftermath of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union feared the United States would use its nuclear superiority to devastate the Socialist Motherland, as from 1945-1948, the U.S. was the only state possessing nuclear weapons. The USSR countered by rapid development of their own nuclear weapons, with a test first occurring in 1949., and the U.S. was taken by surprise. In turn, the U.S. countered by developing the vastly more powerful thermonuclear weapon, testing their first hydrogen bomb in 1952 at Ivy Mike, but the USSR quickly countered by testing their own thermonuclear weapons, with a test in 1953 of a semi-thermonuclear weapon of the Sloika design, and in 1956, with the testing of Sakharov's Third Idea - equivalent to the Castle Bravo device. Meanwhile, tensions between the two nations rose as 1956 saw the brutal suppression of Hungary by the Red Army; the U.S. and European nations drew certain obvious and inevitable conclusions from that event, while in the U.S., full scale hysteria was afoot, prompted by Joseph McCarthy, HUAC, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, two atomic spies. This atmosphere was further inflamed by the 1957 launch of Sputnik, which led to wild fears of Communists attacking from space, as well as very real fears about the fact that if the Soviets could launch something over one's head, they could launch something else that could hit one's head. John F. Kennedy capitalized on this situation by emphasizing the Bomber Gap and the Missile Gap, areas which the Soviets were (inaccurately) perceived as leading the United States in, while heated Soviet rhetoric, including Nikita Khruschev's famous threat that "We will bury you!" to Western ambassadors didn't help to cool tensions. The U-2 incident, involving Francis Gary Powers, as well as the Berlin Crisis, along with the test of the Tzar Bomba, escalated tensions to unheard of levels.

This escalating situation came to a head with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The arrival of Soviet missiles in Cuba was ostensibly aimed to protect Cuba from further planned attacks from the United States after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. The movement of missiles was conducted by the Soviets on the basis that the US already had nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey. The Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in Khrushchev publicly agreeing to remove the missiles from Cuba, while America secretly agreed to remove the missiles from Turkey. During the crisis, Fidel Castro wrote Khrushchev a letter about the prospect that the US might follow an invasion of Cuba with a first strike against the USSR. The following quotation from the letter suggests to some writers that Castro was calling for a Soviet first strike against the US.

"... the Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it."[1]

Luckily, rational minds prevailed. Both sides in the Cold War realized how close they came to nuclear war over Cuba, and decided to seek a reduction of tensions, resulting in US-Soviet detente for most of the 1960s and 1970s.

However, tensions were inflamed again in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the decision of NATO to deploy the new Pershing II IRBM as well as the Tomahawk Ground-Launched Cruise Missile, along with Ronald Reagan's talk of 'limited' nuclear war. This increased Soviet fears that NATO was planning an attack. NATO's deployment of these missiles was a response to the Soviet deployment of the SS-20 Pioneer, which could hit most European NATO bases within minutes of launch. These mutual deployments led to a destabilizing strategic situation, which was exacerbated by malfunctioning U.S. and Soviet missile launch early warning systems, a Soviet intelligence gap that prevented the Soviets from getting a "read" on the strategic intentions of U.S. leaders, as well as overheated U.S. rightist rhetoric combined with classical Soviet paranoia. This culminated in a war scare that occurred during 1983 due to the inopportune timing of a NATO exercise called Able Archer, which was a simulation of a NATO nuclear attack on the Soviet Union; this exercise happened to occur during a massive Soviet intelligence mobilization called VRYAN, that was designed to discover intentions of NATO to initiate a nuclear first-strike. This poor timing drove the world very close to nuclear war, possibly even closer than the Cuban Missile Crisis over 20 years before.

But rational minds once again prevailed, and both sides retreated from the brink of the abyss of nuclear war.

Subsequent events caused the fears of nuclear attack on both sides to diminish significantly, as the tensions between the superpowers decreased, and have remained--at least in nuclear terms--comparatively low, to this day; indeed, at least on the official level, the U.S. and Russia no longer see each other as enemies, though some believe that the large stockpiles of nuclear weapons and high alert levels that both retain means that that belief might not be shared by certain interests in their military-industrial complexes.

[edit] Historical analysis

Both sides never sought nuclear conflict, even though it threatened to break out on multiple occasions. What both sides had, however, was a deep and continuing fear--one might even call it a paranoia--that the other nation was seeking to start a nuclear conflict, or, at least, thought such a conflict was "winnable" and would not be deterred by the threat of nuclear war. This led to both sides adopting aggressive, confrontational military and nuclear strategies that were misinterpreted and countered by the other side, furthering distrust. These strategies led to destabilization of the strategic situation to the point where the two major war scares of the Cold War occurred: the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Able Archer/VRYAN crisis. Though neither side intended to start a nuclear war, and, in fact, were mortally terrified of the possibility of it, neither side adopted strategies to calm things down, so sure were they of their adversaries' bad faith.

U.S. military strategy (at least in Europe) was confined to responses to potential Soviet aggression against NATO countries. Soviet military theory was dominated by the theory of the "deep operation" - a large scale armored offensive into enemy-held territory - rather than a nuclear offensive. Soviet conventional superiority, shown by the fact that the Soviet Union certainly was prepared for war in Europe, having massed forces poised along the inner German and Czech borders, caused NATO to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons to stop the "steamroller" of the Red Army if they decided to take a drive through the Fulda Gap. Although neither side was actively pursuing a first-strike policy--since the time of Khrushchev, the leaders of orthodox communism believed that "peaceful coexistence" with the "imperialist" powers was possible--both sides relied on military strategies that could have still caused a general nuclear war.

Ideological determinism also played a role. President Ronald Reagan of the United States, at least before the Able Archer/VRYAN crisis, believed that everybody, including the Soviet Union, was completely aware of the United States' good intentions, even when he bellicosely declared that the USSR was an "evil empire" and that the "bombing begins in 5 minutes" while encouraging the military to conduct threatening exercises, such as sneaking a Carrier Battle Group through the GIUK Gap and sending nuclear-capable bombers towards the territory of the USSR. Chairman Andropov of the Soviet Union had similar, distorted views; he believed that the Western Allies, and the U.S., in particular, were fascist states, whose leaders had territorial designs against the Soviet Motherland on the scale of Napoleon, at the least, and Hitler, at the worst; in addition, to counter the "fascists", he incited his military-industrial complex to build weapons such as the SS-20 IRBM, which the NATO countries (quite reasonably) viewed as a Soviet sword against their throats.

These mutually destabilizing policies were the kindling for a fire that could have consumed the whole world, if a spark had occurred at the wrong moment. Thankfully for those who lived--and those who now live--no such spark occurred.

[edit] Likely first strike weapons systems

  • Pershing II IRBM. Single warhead, variable yield 5-50 Kt, CEP 50 m with active radar terminal guidance. Short, 7-minute flight-time and range of 1,800 km, designed to strike C4ISTAR installations, bunkers, air fields, air defense sites, and ICBM silos in the European part of the Soviet Union. Decommissioned.
  • SS-18 Satan MIRV--Believed to be a first-strike weapon by some in the West, due to high accuracy, and high throw-weight; could deliver at least 10 warheads of at least 500 Kt to independent, separate targets. Each warhead could probably take out even hardened nuclear silos, such as those used by the Minuteman III. Deployed in 1976, aimed at CONUS. Still in service.
  • MX Missile (Peacekeeper)--Similar in capability to the SS-18 Satan, the Peacekeeper boasted 10 MIRVed warheads of 300 kt each, as well as a CEP of 120 meters. Deployed in the mid-1980s. Decommissioned; however, guidance systems and re-entry vehicles moved to Minuteman III missiles.
  • SS-20 Saber MIRV IRBM--Deployed by the Soviet Union in the late 1970s, this MIRVed IRBM could hide out behind the Urals in Asian Russia and strike NATO C4ISTAR facilities in Europe with scarcely any warning, due to very short flight time, high accuracy, and MIRV payload (rare on an intermediate-range missile). Decommissioned.

[edit] First-strike enabling weapons systems

  • Any missile defense system capable of wide-area (e.g. continental) coverage, and especially those enabling destruction of missiles in the boost phase, are first-strike-enabling weapons. The reason for this is that they allow for a nuclear strike to be launched with reduced fear of mutual assured destruction. Such a system has never been deployed, although a limited continental missile defense capability has been deployed by the U.S., but is only capable of defending against a handful of missiles.
    • This does not apply, in general, to terminal missile defense systems, such as the former U.S. Safeguard Program or the Russian A-35/A-135 systems. Limited-area terminal missile defense systems, defending such targets as ICBM fields, or C4ISTAR facilities may, in fact, be stabilizing, because they ensure survivable retaliatory capacity, and/or survivable de-escalation capacity.

[edit] Other possible first-strike weapons systems

  • Trident II. Up to 14 warheads, 100/475 kt yield each, CEP 90 m (using GPS guidance). Main purpose is second-strike countervalue retaliation, but the excellent CEP and much shorter flight-time due to submarine launch makes it an ideal first-strike weapon. However, this neglects the probability that GPS would likely be destroyed by orbital nuclear-detonation-induced electromagnetic loading of the ionosphere during any significant nuclear conflict (through high-altitude nuclear explosions--see Starfish Prime and Electromagnetic pulse for more information), or disabled, so as to avoid OPFOR use, forcing reliance on the significantly-less-accurate inertial guidance systems. In addition, these factors may be exacerbated by the fact that SSBNs are usually deep underwater for their mission, and can only receive very low rate data communications via VLF or ELF, causing slow reception and verification of strike orders, and the one-missile at a time fire rate of a nuclear missile submarine.
  • SS-18 Satan 20 Mt variant. Although it is widely accepted that USSR never had a first-strike strategy (due to its conventional arms superiority in Europe), some experts believed that the single-warhead 20 Mt version of R36-M (SS-18, CEP 250 m.) was a first-strike weapon, targeted against Minuteman III silos. However, a much more logical explanation comes from retired Soviet military officers who report that the 20 Mt SS-18 was targeted against heavily fortified command and control facilities. The reason for this is that a single 20Mt warhead could only take out one hardened missile silo if the silos are sufficiently separated--probably by only 2-4 km, depending on the amount of hardening. This is due to the the inverse square law, which predicts that the amount of energy dispersed from a single point release of energy (such as a thermonuclear blast) dissipates by the inverse of the square of distance from the single point of release. The result is that the power of a nuclear explosion to rupture hardened structures is greatly decreased by the distance from the impact point of the nuclear weapon. So a near-direct hit is generally necessary, as only diminishing returns are gained by increasing bomb power. The only purpose for gigantic nuclear weapons, like the SS-18 20 Mt variant, is to take out extremely hardened targets, like command and control facilities, such as NORAD, located at Cheyenne Mountain; FEMA, located at Mount Weather; or Site R, located at Raven Rock. (It should be noted that the amount of energy needed to rupture missile silos is orders of magnitude greater than the amount necessary to destroy cities, making the SS-18 20 Mt variant effective for the destruction of large urban centers, as well.) This could be a useful weapon for a decapitation strike--however, a decapitation strike is a very risky move, and both the U.S. and Russia have extensive countermeasures against such methods.

[edit] Anti-first-strike countermeasures

For both the U.S. and Russia, as well as the other nuclear powers, full countervalue retaliation would be the likely fate for anyone who unleashed a first strike. So as to ensure that this is the case, the nuclear-weapons states have taken measures to ensure that their retaliatory strikes will get through.

[edit] Increasing SSBN(РПКСН) deployment

Nuclear-powered submarines carrying submarine-launched ballistic missiles, called SSBNs (Russian:РПКСН), and commonly known as "boomers", are widely considered the most survivable component of the nuclear triad. The depths of the ocean are extremely large, and nuclear submarines are highly mobile, very quiet, have virtually unlimited range, and can generate their own oxygen and potable water; in essence, their undersea endurance is limited only by food supply. It is unlikely that any conceivable opponent of any nuclear power deploying SSBNs could locate and neutralize every ballistic missile submarine before it could launch a retaliatory strike, in the event of war. Therefore, to increase the percentage of nuclear forces surviving a first strike, a nation can simply increase SSBN deployment, as well as deployment of reliable communications links with SSBNs.

[edit] Hardening or mobilizing land-based nuclear assets

In addition, land-based ICBM(МБР) silos(ШПУ) can be hardened. No silo can really defend against a direct nuclear hit, but a sufficiently hardened silo could defend against a near miss. In addition, ICBMs can be placed on road or rail-mobile launchers, which can then be moved around; as an enemy has nothing fixed to aim at, this increases their survivability.

[edit] Increasing alert state and readiness

By adopting a launch on warning nuclear posture, the possibility of a first-strike can be significantly mitigated. Of course, the possibility of an accidental nuclear war is vastly increased, as early-warning system malfunctions (which have occurred several times), especially in periods of politico-military tension, could easily lead to nuclear war.

[edit] Maintaining survivable C4ISTAR links

Looking Glass, Nightwatch, and TACAMO are U.S. airborne nuclear command posts, and represent survivable communication links with U.S. nuclear forces. In the event of significant political-military tensions between the nuclear powers, they would take to the skies, and provide survivable communications in the event of enemy attack. They are capable of the full exercise of all available MAOs (Major Attack Options), as well as the full SIOP, in the event of a first strike, or the destruction of the NCA. They can directly initiate launch of all U.S. ICBMs via radio and satellite communication, signal SLBMs to launch, and send bombers on their strike missions. In addition to these airborne assets, the U.S. government has several command and control bunkers, the most famous of which is NORAD, tunneled a few thousand feet into the granite of Cheyenne Mountain, outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado, which is believed to be capable of surviving a direct nuclear hit. Other U.S. C4ISTAR bunkers include an installation called Site R, located at Raven Rock, Maryland, which is believed to be the Pentagon's relocation site if Washington, D.C. is destroyed, as well as Mount Weather, in Virginia, which is believed to be the relocation site for top Executive Branch officials. The Greenbriar in West Virginia was once the site of the Supreme Court of the United States and Congress' relocation bunker; however, it is no longer a secret and is now a tourist attraction.

The Russians also have equivalent or superior capabilities in this area; they have a system called СПРН, which is capable of detecting nuclear launches and providing early warning, so that any such strike would not be undetected until it is too late. But their unique and special capability can be found with their Dead Hand fail-deadly computerized nuclear release system, based at Mount Yamantaw in the Urals. Apparently, Dead Hand, named for either the Dead Man's Hand in poker, or the Dead Man's Switch in dangerous or deadly machinery, can be turned on in the event that the Russian leadership fears a nuclear attack. Allegedly, once Dead Hand is activated, if it detects a loss of communications with Moscow as well as nuclear detonations inside of Russian territory, it can give final authority for the release of nuclear weapons to military officers in a bunker under Mt. Yamantaw, who can then, if they so determine, launch Russia's arsenal. Mt. Yamantaw is believed to be able to withstand multiple direct nuclear detonations.

[edit] Decreasing tensions by mutual adoption of a minimum credible deterrent posture

Instead of relying on sophisticated communications links and launch-on-warning postures, the French, British, and Chinese have chosen to assume different nuclear postures more suited to minimum credible deterrence, or the capability to inflict of unacceptable losses so as to prevent the use of nuclear weapons against them, rather than pursuing types of nuclear weapons suitable to first-strike use.

The People's Republic of China is believed to pursue a minimum credible deterrent/second strike strategy with regards to the United States. This may or may not be true with regards to the PRC's stance vis a vis Russia, as the majority of Chinese nuclear platforms are non-intercontinental, and are deployed on the Russian-Chinese border. Unlike the relations of the United States and the PRC, the PRC and Russia have had military conflicts in the past. In recent years, the PRC has improved its early-warning systems and renovated certain of its platforms for intercontinental strike; this may be due to the U.S. missile defense system (it may not be, however). In general, it appears that the PRC's leaders do not greatly fear a first strike (due to their posture of merely inflicting unacceptable losses upon an adversary as opposed to the U.S./Russian policy of trying to "win" a nuclear war); in any event, the Chinese arsenal is considered sufficient to ensure that such a first strike would not go unavenged.

France & Great Britain possess sophisticated nuclear weapons platforms; however their nuclear strategies are believed to be minimum credible deterrent-based as well, due to the small number of weapons they possess and lack of major adversaries they have.

[edit] Eliminating nuclear weapons

Ultimately, the best countermeasure against a nuclear first-strike, or a nuclear strike of any sort, is to eliminate nuclear weapons, in a universal, comprehensive, verifiable, and irreversible fashion. Of course, this is more easily said then done, but, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the nuclear weapons states have obligated themselves to at least try.

[edit] Destabilizing role of land-based MIRVed ICBMs

MIRVed land-based ICBMs are generally considered suitable for a first strike or a counterforce strike, due to:

  1. Their high accuracy, compared to submarine-launched ballistic missiles which are less accurate, and more prone to defects;
  2. Their fast response time, compared to bombers which are considered too slow;
  3. Their ability to carry multiple warheads at once, useful for destroying a whole missile field with one missile.

Unlike a decapitation strike or a countervalue strike, a counterforce strike might result in a potentially more constrained retaliation. Though the Minuteman III of the mid-1960s was MIRVed with 3 warheads, heavily MIRVed vehicles threatened to upset the balance; these included the SS-18 Satan which was was deployed in 1976, and was considered to threaten Minuteman III silos, which led some neocons to conclude a Soviet first strike was being prepared for. This led to the development of the aforementioned Pershing II, the Trident I and Trident II, as well as the MX missile, and the B-1 Lancer.

MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. When a missile is MIRVed, it is able to carry many warheads (3 to 14 in existing U.S. missiles; 3 to 12 in existing Soviet missiles) and deliver them to separate targets. If we assume that each side has 100 missiles, with 5 warheads each, and further that each side has a 95 percent chance of neutralizing the opponent's missiles in their silos by firing 2 warheads at each silo. In this case, the side that strikes first can reduce the enemy ICBM force from 100 missiles to about 5 by firing 40 missiles with 200 warheads, and keeping the rest of 60 missiles in reserve. It is because of this that this type of weapon was intended to be banned under the START II agreement, however the START II agreement was never activated, and neither Russia nor the USA has adhered to the agreement.

[edit] Bertrand Russell and the merit of a first strike on the USSR

In an exchange of letters in The Economist magazine in 2001, Nigel Lawson, the former British Chancellor, and Nicholas Griffin, of McMaster University, discussed a speech given in 1948 at Westminster School by the celebrated philosopher Bertrand Russell.[2] In answer to a question from the audience, Bertrand Russell said that if the USSR's aggression continued, it would be morally worse to go to war after the USSR possessed an atomic bomb than before they possessed one, because if the USSR had no bomb the West's victory would come more swiftly and with fewer casualties than if there were atom bombs on both sides.

To put this into context, only the USA possessed an atomic bomb at that time, and the USSR was pursuing an extremely aggressive policy towards the countries in Eastern Europe which it was absorbing into its sphere of influence. Many understood Russell's comments to mean that Russell approved of a First Strike war with the USSR, including Lawson, who was present when Russell spoke. Others, including Griffin who obtained a transcript of the speech, have argued that he was merely explaining the usefulness of America's atomic arsenal in deterring the USSR from continuing its domination of Eastern Europe. In short, one group of people believe Russell wanted to use the atomic bomb militarily before it was too late, and the other group believe he wanted to use the bomb diplomatically before it was too late. Whatever Russell really meant, it soon became of only historical interest as the USSR successfully detonated its own atomic device a year later in 1949.

[edit] Iran

In the April 17 2006 issue of The New Yorker,[3] Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported on the Bush Administration's purported plans for an air strike within Iran. Of particular note in his article is that an American nuclear first strike (possibly using the B61-11 bunker-buster nuclear weapon) is under consideration to eliminate underground Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. In response, President Bush cited Hersh's reporting as "wild speculation"[4] but did not deny its veracity. It should be noted though the the President had commented earlier in 2006 that while the use of nuclear weapons should indeed be a last resort, it should still always be an option on the table.

[edit] Movies about first strike

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/cmc_castro_khrushchev.html
  2. ^ A philosopher’s letters | Love, Bertie | Economist.com
  3. ^ Annals of National Security: The Iran Plans: The New Yorker
  4. ^ Bush Calls Reports of Plan to Strike Iran 'Speculation' - New York Times

[edit] External links