In matters of national security policy, every intellectual failure may be dense with implication. President Obama, by failing to identify serious strategic threats and objectives, has ignored the core expectations of national survival logic in an anarchic world. Before a safer America could ever be born from any policy of worldwide nuclear disarmament, a gravedigger would have to wield the forceps.
Any further nuclear proliferation should be curtailed, but, ironically, this commendable goal would be
degraded by the president's proposals. By themselves, nuclear weapons are neither good nor evil. In certain circumstances, these weapons may even be indispensable to national security and deterrence. The nuclear stalemate between this country and the former Soviet Union played a critical role in preventing World War III. And however "ambiguous," Israel's implicit nuclear deterrent is required for that tiny country's capacity to simply endure.
The naïve nuclear hopes of President Obama and his advisors represent an elaborate fiction. What we require, instead, is a model of international relations that reflects, realistically, the prevailing passions and principles of all our potential enemies in world politics. Such a model, wherein strategic threats and opportunities would be called by their correct names, would be drawn not from Mr. Obama's idealized visions, but from the informed and indisputable awareness that America's multiple enemies, still crouched in the bruising darkness, often remain stubbornly face down to peace with the United States.
When Pericles delivered his
Funeral Oration, with its praise of Athenian civilization, his perspective was inner-directed. As recorded by Thucydides, Pericles remarked:
"What I fear more than the strategies of our enemies is our own mistakes." Later, in Rome, the philosopher/statesman Cicero inquired: "
What can be done against force without force?" Today, a president of the United States must still understand that in a world of international anarchy, foreign policy must aim above all at maintaining and improving his country's relative power position.
America needs nuclear weapons for deterrence. More precisely, we need to continually upgrade and refine these weapons, as well as their associated strategic doctrine. We need to recapitalize our national nuclear deterrent, and ensure that we can maintain all essential global power projection capabilities. This means, at a minimum, a re-examination of nuclear targeting doctrine, this time with regard to current threats from other countries
and their proxies. It also means preparing for a world in which both our national and sub-national enemies may sometimes be irrational. In all of these matters, the president's current glide path to a nuclear-free world is counterproductive.
President Obama may wish to distance himself from the prior Bush administration's defense policies, but a key concern of U.S. strategic doctrine must still be
preemption. Like it or not, there are major threats on the horizon that may still call for
anticipatory self-defense. In our uncertain strategic future, where enemy rationality cannot always be assumed, and where the essential effectiveness of national ballistic missile defense would be too low, the only reasonable alternative to an American preemption could be surrender or defeat.
Sea power still has its proper place. Observing actions of Iran, Russia, China and North Korea, future enemy missile launches could come from container ships off our shores. Launches against Israel could likely also come directly from Iran, so a modernized U.S. anti-missile fleet capability should be positioned in the Mediterranean, Red and Arabian seas. For Israel, its current Dolphin class submarines may have to be upgraded, and so may its ever-improving system of ballistic missile defense.
A nuclear threat to American cities need not come from enemy missiles. It could also come from cars and trucks, and from ships used only for "dirty-bomb" dispersals. Ballistic missile defense would be of no use against any such attacks.
Could we make enemy states and their surrogates believe that proxy acts of nuclear terrorism would elicit an unacceptable retaliation against them
directly? Perhaps we could, but functional answers can never emerge from a futile plan for global nuclear disarmament.
America's strategic doctrine must rest on the idea that significant threats of war and terrorism may now derive from a "
clash of civilizations," and not merely from narrow political or ideological differences. This does not mean that President Obama is wrong in his expanding emphasis on negotiation and diplomacy, but only that he should also acknowledge that some of our principal enemies will be unresponsive to traditional deterrent policies. These enemies, sworn to otherworldly ideals of
Jihad, will be animated not by the ordinary secular promises of hegemony, wealth and privilege, but rather by
power over death.
Some of these enemies could come to resemble the suicide bomber
writ large. Such enemies, Mr. Obama should understand, may not concede even an inch to such conventionally accepted international norms as
compromise, coexistence and
peaceful settlement.
If launched at any time of grave national instability, an act of nuclear terrorism against the United States could have existential consequences. To prevent the "Ryder truck scenario," which could involve either a radiological or "real" (
authenticchain reaction) nuclear weapon, President Obama's strategic policy would have to hold the
state sponsors accountable. This policy, of course, should initially offer these states a suitable diplomatic option.
If, however, such an outreach should fail, the president must then make clear that any terrorist proxy nuclear explosion in this country would
certainly elicit an unacceptably damaging retaliation. This means, among other steps, that we (1) unambiguously target these sponsor states; and (2) plainly and regularly war-game retaliatory options with our National Command Authorities. Although the circumstances are different in several key respects, this "exercising" was done with evident success during the Cold War.
Nuclear weapons are not going to go away. Despite his personal wishes and visions, the president must now learn to base our national strategic policy on precisely this sober understanding. Soon, therefore, Mr. Obama must begin to construct a broad, coherent and compelling strategic plan from which specific policy options can be extrapolated. This plan should prepare to deal effectively with both our national and sub-national adversaries, some of whom might sometimes even be willing to act irrationally.
Louis René Beres (Ph.D.,
Princeton, 1971) is Professor of Political Science and International Law at
Purdue University.
Thomas McInerney, Lt. General (
USAF/Ret) is co-author (with MG Paul E. Vallely) of
The Endgame: Winning the War on Terror. General McInerney is retired Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force.
Paul E. Vallely, Major General (
USA/Ret.) is an author, military strategist and Chairman of
Stand Up America and
Save Our Democracy Projects.
