Nuclear warfare beyond counterforce

Abstract

A counterforce attack intends to disable an opponent's nuclear arsenal to limit potential damage from that adversary. We postulate a future when hardening and deeply burying fixed sites, transition to mobile strategic systems, and improved defences make executing a counterforce strategy against an adversary's nuclear forces extremely difficult. Additionally, our postulated future has multiple nations possessing nuclear weapons. Consequently, each country needs to consider multiple actors when addressing the question of how to deter a potential adversary's nuclear attack. We examine six nuclear targeting alternatives and consider how to deter them. These strategies include nuclear demonstration, conventional military targets, and attacks consisting of communications/electronics, economic, infrastructure, and population centers that a nation might consider striking with nuclear weapons. Since these alternative strikes require only a few nuclear weapons, executing one of them would not significantly shift the balance of nuclear forces. The attacking country's remaining nuclear forces may inhibit the attacked country or its allies from responding. How can nations deter these limited nuclear attacks? Potentially, threatening economic counter-strikes seems to be the best alternative. How might escalation be controlled in the event of a limited attack? Other instruments of power, such as political or economic, might be employed to bolster deterrence against these types of nuclear strikes.