Big Ideas Lab - Strategic Deterrence

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

In October 1962, a U-2 reconnaissance plane captured images of Soviet missile sites under construction in Cuba. What followed was a tense 13-day standoff between the US and the Soviet Union—an event that became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.This pivotal moment in the Cold War revealed the catastrophic potential of nuclear war and the urgent need for diplomacy. Today, we're diving deep into the national security principle of strategic deterrence—a policy designed to win wars not by preparing for their inevitability, but by preventing them outright.--- Big Ideas Lab is a Mission.org original series. Executive Produced and Written by Lacey Peace. Sound Design, Music Edit and Mix by Daniel Brunelle. Story Editing by Daniel Brunelle. Audio Engineering and Editing by Matthew Powell. Narrated by Matthew Powell. Video Production by Levi Hanusch. Guests featured in this episode (in order of appearance): Dr. Marvin Adams, Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the National Nuclear Security AdministrationMichael Zika, Principal Associate Deputy Director for Strategic Deterrence at Lawrence Livermore National LaboratoryBrad Wallin, Deputy Director for Strategic Deterrence at Lawrence Livermore National LaboratoryBrought to you in partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. 

On October 14, 1962, Major Richard S. Heiser piloted a U-2 reconnaissance plane over western Cuba on a high-risk intelligence gathering mission. The United States had received unsettling reports about Soviet activity in Cuba. After studying reconnaissance photographs made with high-powered cameras from planes flying several miles from the Cuban coast… It was Heizer's job to secure clear photographic evidence to support these reports. Literally thousands of pictures can be made on each flight by these planes. Heizer's flight lasted six hours.

When he returned, the images he captured were immediately transported to the National Photographic Interpretation Center in DC and analyzed by experts. And they are studied by photo interpreters who are capable of analyzing details that an untrained eye would miss. Within a day, the initial reports

had been confirmed. Suddenly the veil is torn from the Russian secrets. The Soviet Union was installing nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S. mainland. Here, for example, is a medium-range ballistic missile base. Another photo revealed a surface-to-air missile assembly depot. Air strips for high-performance MiG-21 jet plane easily capable of strikes far into the United States. These missiles had the capability to strike significant portions of the continental United States. Less than 48 hours after the conclusion of Heiser's flight, the photographs he had captured were sitting on President Kennedy's desk.

Good evening, my fellow citizens. Unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere. What followed was a tense 13-day standoff

between the U.S. and Soviet Union, a standoff that infamously became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Castro said that they had better come ready for combat. Today, we're diving deep into the national security principle of strategic deterrence, a policy designed to win wars not by preparing for their inevitability, but by preventing them outright. Welcome to the Big Ideas Lab, your weekly exploration inside Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Hear untold stories, meet boundary-pushing pioneers, and get unparalleled access inside the gates. From national security challenges to computing revolutions, discover the innovations that are shaping tomorrow, today.

After intense negotiations, public statements, and private communications between President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, a deal was struck. Friday night, got a message from Khrushchev which said that you would withdraw these missiles and fighting. We did not plan to invade Cuba. The Soviet Union agreed to dismantle the missile installations in exchange for a U.S. public declaration and agreement never to invade Cuba. We have to wait to see how it unfolds, the withdrawal of these missiles and the cessation of subversive activity by them. So I would think that it may be only one more chapter in a rather long story as far as Cuba's concerned. The resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis was a turning point in the Cold War,

showing both sides the catastrophic potential of a nuclear war and the need for careful diplomacy in nuclear negotiations. Strategic deterrence is convincing the adversary when they wake up in the morning every day, they look and they say, today's not the day to mess with them. You know, in the context of why nuclear deterrence has worked so well, it's that the use of them is thought of as being unacceptable. And therefore, all countries have wanted to do anything they could to avoid actually using it. Strategic deterrence is a cornerstone of national security strategy, leveraging the threat of overwhelming retaliation to prevent adversaries from initiating or escalating conflicts. One primary overarching goal of U.S. national security is to preserve our way of life and

that of our partners and allies without fighting major wars. So think of that as the great big objective out there. Dr. Marvin Adams serves as the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA. A major part of our strategy for achieving that goal is deterrence. He heads the team tasked with ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of the nation's entire nuclear weapons stockpile. Dr. Adams explains that effective deterrence uses various tactics, all built on a strong and credible nuclear deterrent. There's a lot of different ways to deter your potential adversaries from taking actions that might lead to those wars that you want to avoid or that might

degrade your ability to keep going with your way of life. Some of those are denial of benefit, for example. Suppose we could make our electric power grid so hard and resilient that the adversary looks at it and says, I might as well not bother. I can't do anything to them. That's a form of deterrence. At the other end of the spectrum in the deterrence toolbox is the imposition of cost. If you can show your potential adversaries that you have the ability to impose costs that they would find unacceptable in response to some aggressive act, then they're deterred from doing it. What we have found as the national security and global security environment has evolved over the years, consistently in the last many years, our military and civilian defense leaders have said uniformly, repeatedly, that all of our tools and our toolbox work only when they're built on a foundation of a strong nuclear deterrent. The nuclear deterrent has to be credible and effective in order for these other tools to work.

Deterrence as a political strategy is not a novel concept. In the 5th century BC, the ancient Greek general Homocrates remarked, when there is mutual fear, men think twice before they make aggressions upon one another. What Homochrates could not have foreseen is that more than 2,000 years later, the stakes would be immeasurably higher as humanity wielded the devastating power of nuclear weapons. In response to these risks, nations have sought ways to prevent the outbreak of nuclear conflict. This nuclear strategic deterrence is the bedrock of U.S. national security strategy and the backbone of global stability.

Our national defense posture stands on a robust nuclear deterrent. That's Michael Zika, the Principal Associate Deputy Director for Strategic Deterrence at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Our national policy is that as long as nuclear weapons exist in the world, the United States will maintain its own ability to respond if attacked. During the Cold War, we saw the power of effective deterrence in action. While terrible regional conflicts such as the Korean War and the Vietnam War occurred, the worst outcome, open nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, was avoided. Despite the constant fear of escalation, this deterrent approach successfully prevented the

catastrophic potential of a full-scale nuclear conflict between superpowers. But the deterrent strategies of the 1960s and 70s are no longer the same today. Technologies have advanced and the geopolitical landscape has evolved. This evolution demands new ways of thinking about deterrence and a renewed commitment to global stability. The fact that past strategies averted disaster does not guarantee their effectiveness in the future, or even the present. This is the greatest challenge of deterrence, maintaining a credible defense to ensure lasting stability. What was once a rush to develop the atomic bomb has now evolved into a continuous effort

to uphold effective deterrence. If you want to maintain deterrence against some potential adversary. And you watch over time, their mix of assets that they value is going to change over time. Their defensive systems around those assets change over time. And so as those things change over time, then in order for your deterrent to remain at the same level of credibility and effectiveness, you might very well have to evolve your delivery systems or deterrent force. Deterrence is more than just amassing the largest stockpile of weapons. It's about understanding the psychology of your adversaries. As defense analyst William Kaufman noted,

quote, In principle, the requirements of deterrence are relatively simple. In practice, however, they turn out to be exceptionally complex, expensive, and difficult to obtain, end quote. Our job is to deter an adversary that we don't always understand completely, and we don't share their value systems. So what a China or a Russia holds dear is something that we have to understand because it is different from what we hold dear. It's not just the technology,

it's an understanding of the psychology of what our adversary needs. The psychology part, that's a tough one. How effective your deterrent is does depend on the way your potential adversaries think. Then we can't always know their decision process, how much risk tolerance they have. There's always some uncertainty there. To reduce that uncertainty, maintaining a credible and ready nuclear deterrent is necessary not only for dissuading adversaries,

but also for ensuring the trust of allies. It also matters that our allies and partners have faith as well. If you look around the world, we are unique in that our deterrent is intended to be an umbrella over other countries, not just our own. We would like to deter aggressive acts on our NATO ally countries. We would also like to deter aggressive acts in the Indo-Pacific, aggressive acts against Taiwan, for example. Understanding the psychology of our adversaries while supporting our allies is essential to effective deterrence. This dual trust helps prevent adversaries while supporting our allies is essential to effective deterrence. This dual

trust helps prevent adversaries from attacking our allies. It also discourages those allies from pursuing their own nuclear arsenals. This approach reduces the spread of nuclear weapon technology, a diplomatic principle known as non-proliferation. And history has shown us how important non-proliferation can be. Mr. Gorbachev teared down this wall. Watching live pictures. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has been removed from power and there are tanks now in the streets of Moscow. The Soviet Union itself is no more. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a seismic event in global politics. Mr. Bush will look ahead to a future of dealing with the new Commonwealth of Independent

States, and we are told now the president will go ahead with formal recognition of those republics, notably Russia. As the Iron Curtain collapsed, the once monolithic USSR fragmented into 15 independent republics. Amidst this chaos, the fate of thousands of nuclear warheads hung in the balance. Nuclear material and warheads were scattered across the newly independent states, with the highest concentrations in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. This dispersal presented an unprecedented challenge to global security. In the NNSA leadership, we really do see the non-proliferation and arms control and nuclear deterrent as all working together toward this same goal of preserving our way of life without fighting major wars.

Former Soviet republics, grappling with newfound independence and economic instability, struggled to maintain control over these potent arsenals. The fear was palpable. What if nuclear weapons fell into the wrong hands? International efforts like the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, led by the United States, played a crucial role during this time. This program aimed to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction in former Soviet states, preventing them from being sold or stolen. But the task was monumental. Treaties and negotiations

became vital tools in the quest for stability. The New START Treaty, among others, not only aimed to cap the number of nuclear weapons, but also facilitated the dismantling of these deadly arsenals. That makes the job of the non-proliferation community easier. Let's suppose that the arms control community is very successful, then the job that I have to deliver for the nuclear deterrent force is easier to deliver than it would be in an unconstrained environment where numbers might be getting bigger quickly. At the same time, if what we're doing in the nuclear deterrent force is credible and effective, that can help bring our potential adversaries to the negotiating table to negotiate further arms control treaties. They basically say, OK, I can't beat you. Let's all reduce our expenditures here. You really have to get down into the details about the likely scenarios and try to put yourself in

the head of the adversary leadership and say, what would make them get up tomorrow morning and say, no, today's not the day. While nuclear deterrence, nonproliferation, and arms control are critical strategies for achieving global peace, not all countries share this goal. What are the implications when some are determined to pursue their own agendas? The United States has been tracking a major flow of Russian weapons into eastern Ukraine. Russian troops spreading out throughout the strategic Crimean Peninsula. Russia's annexation and further aggression in eastern Ukraine.

MH17 was blown out of the sky by pro-Russian separatists. Ukraine woke to explosions around the capital, Kiev. Russia's stationed its first batch of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. When questioned about the risks of nuclear war over Ukraine, Mr. Putin said Russia's nuclear doctrine permits the use of weapons in response to a number of threats. For well over a decade, it's been very clear that Russia has been very aggressively increasing its number of nuclear weapons and also diversifying the number of platforms that it has. Putin just announced the successful test of a new nuclear-powered missile. He has very powerful weapons he's willing to use. In a retaliatory counter-strike, so many hundreds of our missiles will appear in the air that not a single enemy

will have a chance of survival. Almost anything you can think of, they can make it nuclear. That's Brad Walleen, the deputy director for strategic deterrence at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. We have an existing treaty called the New START Treaty. I am honored to mark this historic completion of the New START Treaty, which limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads. New START, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, is an agreement that was signed in 2010 between Russia and the U.S.

The treaty aims to reduce and limit the number of strategic nuclear warheads and their delivery systems. But what Russia has done is they have been mostly increasing in the area of non-strategic nuclear warheads. So there is no formal treaty or limit on those. This treaty defines strategic warheads as those deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, also known as SLBMs, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments. While Russia has not increased production of these strategic warheads, it has increased production of non-strategic warheads, also known as tactical nuclear weapons.

These tactical weapons are designed for use on the battlefield in military situations, typically with shorter ranges and lower yields compared to strategic nuclear weapons. They have backed out of some of the verification measures that we both agreed to as part of that treaty, which will expire unless we do something in 2026. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the world experienced a period of relative peace and stability. That confrontation is now over. The nuclear threat, while far from gone, is receding. Eastern Europe is free. Since the mid-2010s, this peace has started to crack. Russia's aggressive actions in Ukraine and its increased production of non-strategic nuclear weapons signal a troubling

shift. And Russia isn't the only country increasing their nuclear weapon output. We're seeing a very resurgent Russia. At the same time, we are seeing China aggressively expanding their nuclear capabilities. Another double-digit increase in China's military spending. ...tonight about China's military capabilities amid a report the country recently tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. The report says the missile circled the Earth before speeding toward its target, demonstrating an advanced capability in space that, quote, caught U.S. intelligence by surprise.

And so for the very first time in our nation's history, we are now faced with the potential future in which we have two adversaries who are each a near peer to the United States. There was an attempt to try to update the New START treaty and make it a trilateral treaty. So have both Russia, China and the U.S. as part of the treaty. And I think China has indicated they really have no interest in being part of that. As Russia and China continue to enhance their nuclear capabilities, the United States faces an unparalleled challenge in maintaining its strategic deterrence

and ensuring global stability. It's unprecedented in our history. These striking images of Chinese warships off the coast of Taiwan this month, a dire warning of a potential invasion that could plunge the world into an economic catastrophe and start a hot war between the U.S. and China. The once solid foundation of post-Cold War peace is now being tested by these emerging threats, demanding renewed efforts in arms control and international cooperation.

China has historically had a much smaller stockpile than we have. And it's in the public now what our general national assessments of Chinese capabilities are. They're dramatically increasing the number of nuclear warheads they've had and investing in the associated infrastructure to make that possible. So the ability to make key components of nuclear weapons, they're investing in that significantly. The number of warheads we believe they have always seems to be more than what we expected that they would have. Russia has been our historic adversary. They definitely have nuclear weapons that work and they definitely have many nuclear

weapons that can be a real threat to us. China, we often call our pacing adversary because in a strategic sense, they have the ability to really outspend us on these things. President Xi Jinping said he wants reunification with Taiwan. 0.55 trillion yuan, that's around 225 billion US dollars. It's up by 7.2 percent compared to the year before. Its military is being modernized and expanded in preparation for the use of force against Taiwan. By the mid-2030s, Brad expects that China will be near peers with the U.S. and Russia. Meanwhile, nuclear arms are proliferating in other countries as well. North Korea claims it has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, a device which can be loaded onto a long-range ballistic missile.

North Korea, they have been the country that's most actively been testing nuclear weapons. They continue to do a substantial amount of missile testing. It was a nuclear test 10 times more powerful than the previous attempt by Pyongyang. They definitely have a stockpile that can threaten U.S. assets and then some concerns about what Iran might do. The International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran has increased its production of near-weapons-grade uranium. They've been continuing to build up material

and concerns that one day they might decide to become a nuclear weapons state as well. The Strategic Posture Committee is a commission tasked by Congress to examine and make recommendations with respect to the long-term strategic posture of the United States. In 2023, the committee wrote, The vision of a world without nuclear weapons, aspirational even in 2009, is more improbable now than ever. The new global environment is fundamentally different than anything experienced in the past, even in the darkest days of the Cold War. Today, the United States is on the cusp of having not one, but two nuclear peer adversaries, each with ambitions to

change the international status quo by force if necessary, a situation which the United States did not anticipate. While the risk of a major nuclear conflict remains low, the risk of military conflict with either or both Russia and China, while not inevitable, has grown, and with it the risk of nuclear use, possibly against the U.S. homeland, end quote. Our thinking about deterrence and what it means to deter an adversary has oriented around a singular adversary. We're now having to rethink that and ask ourselves questions around how do we simultaneously deter two adversaries who have capabilities that are near peers to what we have?

So the thinking on deterrence is really undergoing a revitalization. And that has ramifications on what nuclear force we think about deploying most effectively, which, of course, has a strong impact on how we do our work, what capabilities do we need to deliver, what capabilities give us the most flexibility for assuring our allies who are now exposed to adversaries in a different way in terms of how China and Russia attempt to project their own power. The U.S. must adapt its deterrent strategies to face both Russia and China simultaneously, each with significant nuclear capabilities. It's quite complicated and it is a massive challenge both in terms of how we think about designing a nuclear weapon, but also how

we think about what is the appropriate force structure and how we deploy that and how the Department of Defense postures itself to maintain that. Maintaining a credible and effective deterrent is crucial for nonproliferation and arms control. It's about sending a clear message that any aggressive act will be met with overwhelming and unacceptable consequences. So how do we ensure our deterrent remains strong and reliable in the face of evolving threats from nations like Russia and China? The answer lies in the relentless innovation and dedication of the team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and their partners across the nuclear security enterprise.

We have a deployed or active stockpile that's out in the field today. And we have a responsibility to make sure that that stockpile is safe, secure, and reliable. It will always perform if it's asked to, and it will never do something unexpected in an accident or a safety scenario. Next episode, we'll take you inside Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to see how their scientists and engineers are tackling these challenges head on. A key challenge of stockpile stewardship is how do we both maintain the existing deterrent as well as modernize it in the absence of nuclear testing. In order to do that, we have to maintain and progress our nuclear stockpile. And learn about the crucial role Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory plays in preserving our nation's strategic edge. I'm just amazed by what we can accomplish and have accomplished and will accomplish because of the teams that we can put together

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