The logic of American nuclear strategy: why strategic superiority matters

281 Pages·2018·14.124 MB·English

by  Kroenig, Matthew

The Logic of American
Nuclear Strategy
BRIDGING THE GAP
Series Editors
James Goldgeier
Bruce Jentleson
Steven Weber
The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy:
Why Strategic Superiority Matters
Matthew Kroenig
The Logic of American
Nuclear Strategy
Why Strategic Superiority Matters
MATTHEW KROENIG
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kroenig, Matthew, author.
Title: The logic of American nuclear strategy : why strategic
superiority matters / Matthew Kroenig.
Description: New York City : Oxford University Press, [2018] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017035084 (print) | LCCN 2017058642 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190849191 (updf) | ISBN 9780190849207 (epub) | ISBN 9780190849184 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Nuclear weapons—Government policy—United States. |
United States—Military policy. | Strategic forces—United States. | Strategy.
Classification: LCC UA23 (ebook) | LCC UA23 .K783 2018 (print) | DDC 355.02/170973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017035084
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
Also by Matthew Kroenig
Author or Co- Author
A Time to Attack: The Looming Iranian Nuclear Threat
Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear
Weapons
The Handbook of National Legislatures: A Global Survey
Co- Editor
Nonproliferation Policy and Nuclear Posture: Causes and Consequences
for the Spread of Nuclear Weapons
Causes and Consequences of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation

CONTENTS
Preface  ix
Abbreviations and Acronyms  xiii
Introduction  1
PART ONE THE ADVANTAGES OF NUCLEAR ADVANTAGES
1. Toward a New Theory of Nuclear Deterrence: The
Superiority- Brinkmanship Synthesis Theory  15
2. Nuclear War Outcomes  39
3. The Correlates of Nuclear Crisis Outcomes  65
4. The Mechanisms of Nuclear Crisis Outcomes  81
5. Nuclear Deterrence and Compellence  114
PART TWO THE DISADVANTAGES
OF NUCLEAR ADVANTAGES?
6. Strategic Stability  127
7. Arms Races  143
vii
viii Contents
8. Nuclear Nonproliferation  159
9. The Defense Budget  178
Conclusion  188
Notes  207
Bibliography  233
Index   247
PREFACE
In the fall of 2008, I was settling in to my first semester as an assistant profes-
sor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University and teaching
a course in my area of expertise, titled “Nuclear Weapons in World Politics.”
Developing a new course is always challenging, and there were many memora-
ble episodes from that first semester, but one in particular stands out.
I was discussing the requirements for successful nuclear deterrence and
I explained to my students that once a country possesses a nuclear arsenal capa-
ble of a secure, second- strike (the ability to absorb a nuclear attack from an
opponent and retain enough surviving warheads to respond with a devastating
nuclear counterattack), then nuclear deterrence would hold. I also mentioned
that, although academics are skeptical of the idea, many US policymakers believe
that the United States’s possession of nuclear superiority over a rival, even above
and beyond a mere second- strike capability, also contributes to deterrence.
Inevitably, one of my smart and curious students asked why.
I did not have an answer.
The politics of nuclear weapons was my area of expertise. It was a major part
of the reason why I was hired at Georgetown. I had received a Public Policy and
Nuclear Threats fellowship from the National Science Foundation during gradu-
ate school at the University of California at Berkeley and I had just spent a year as
a postdoctoral fellow at the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard University.
I had previously served as a military analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency
and a strategist in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where I had worked on
issues of nuclear weapons and deterrence. I had a book and several articles on
nuclear issues in the pipeline, accepted for publication in top scholarly outlets.
I vividly recalled the reams of scholarship I had read on nuclear deterrence the-
ory. Yet, I could not call to mind a single, clear explanation for why a strategic
nuclear advantage might translate into a geopolitical advantage. If anyone should
have been able to answer this question, it was me. But I was at a loss for words.
ix