Comments?: Escalation Dominance in America's Oldest New Nuclear Strategy - War on the Rocks

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

> https://warontherocks.com/2018/09/escalation-dominance-in-americas-oldest-new-nuclear-strategy/ 
> <https://warontherocks.com/2018/09/escalation-dominance-in-americas-oldest-new-nuclear-strategy/>
>
> Escalation Dominance in America’s Oldest New Nuclear Strategy
>
>
> There actually is some kind of Escalation Control Cabinet in the underground spaces beneath the Pentagon, but no one 
> in the building thinks it holds the solutions to nuclear conflict.
>
>
>
> Escalation control mechanism in the DC Metro’s Pentagon Station
>
> While working deterrence policy under the Obama and Trump administrations, I never encountered a belief that there is 
> any way to guarantee that escalation will remain limited if a conflict goes nuclear. Within the U.S. defense 
> establishment, there is consistent understanding that even limited nuclear use between capable adversaries would 
> bring grave risk <https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/low-yield-nuclear-weapons-worth-new-look/> of further escalation. 
> Fortunately, planners and policymakers don’t conclude as a result that uncontrolled escalation is certain and that 
> there is no point trying to limit the consequences if that awful day ever comes. In any nuclear conflict, there is a 
> chance that efforts to limit escalation will succeed, and a chance that they will fail. Escalation control strategies 
> reduce the likelihood of the worst possible outcomes if deterrence fails. Such strategies are also necessary to 
> underwrite the credibility of efforts to deter conflict in the first place.
>
> The Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review  
> <https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF>adopts a sound 
> escalation control framework that incorporates two basic strategies: one aimed at limiting escalation in a conflict 
> with the major nuclear powers, China and Russia, and the other tailored to threshold and minor nuclear powers. This 
> framework decreases the likelihood of escalation in conflict by denying major nuclear adversaries confidence in their 
> ability to win, while ensuring an ability to defeat minor nuclear powers. The current approach is effective and will 
> remain so for many years, but only as long as a clearly discernible difference exists between major and minor nuclear 
> powers. It will eventually require adjustment if North Korea’s nuclear capabilities continue to advance without 
> careful changes to U.S. missile defense architecture. This article explores the differences between flexible response 
> and escalation dominance, and explains why getting that distinction right — as the Nuclear Posture Review does — is 
> crucial for avoiding the pitfalls of escalation dominance and maintaining an effective strategy.
>
> Flexible Response and Escalation Dominance
>
> There are two basic options for attempting escalation control. Both emerged early in the Cold War as the United 
> States considered how best to respond to a Soviet ability to strike back with nuclear weapons. Each strategy plays a 
> role in the Nuclear Posture Review’s escalation control framework.
>
> Flexible response relies upon the ability to act at various levels of escalation to deny confidence in the 
> adversary’s ability to win. Harold Brown explained it as “the ability to respond appropriately to any level of 
> potential attack 
> <https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/annual_reports/1982_DoD_AR.pdf?ver=2014-06-24-150904-113> and to 
> pose the risk of escalation to higher levels of conflict.” Originally, flexible response was NATO’s strategy for 
> responding to Soviet aggression in Europe with something other than a world-ending massive nuclear counterstrike. 
> Threatening massive retaliation to lesser attacks seemed less credible and therefore a less effective deterrent. 
> Massive retaliation was also less desirable because it would assure greater destruction on all sides. The new Nuclear 
> Posture Review continues a strategy of flexible response for countering the major nuclear powers, Russia and China. 
> This includes a messaging element — simply telling each adversary that it cannot count on winning through escalation 
> — and a capabilities element that involves ensuring the United States possesses “a range of limited and graduated 
> options” for responding to Russian or Chinese escalation.
>
> Flexible response discourages escalation by muddying the path to victory the adversary might envision. The idea that 
> escalation may credibly elicit an effective countermove leaves the adversary asking, “If I ratchet the conflict up, 
> then what happens next, and where will it end?” Flexible response gives both sides greater incentive to forgo further 
> escalation. Possessing response options that are less escalatory also offers a way to potentially slow the conflict, 
> providing additional time to find ways of stepping back.
>
> Escalation dominance, on the other hand, relies upon superiority at various levels of conflict to ensure one’s own 
> ability to win. According to Herman Kahn’s original formulation, escalation dominance 
> <https://www.amazon.com/Escalation-Metaphors-Scenarios-Herman-Kahn/dp/1412811627> “is a capacity, other things being 
> equal, to enable the side possessing it to enjoy marked advantages in a given region of the escalation ladder.” The 
> Nuclear Posture Review adopts escalation dominance only for countering minor and emerging nuclear powers where U.S. 
> superiority is feasible across a wide escalation spectrum. The document never actually uses the term “escalation 
> dominance,” but it promises, for example, that the United States has the capability and will to ensure that “there is 
> no scenario in which the Kim regime could employ nuclear weapons and survive.”
>
> Careful differentiation between flexible response and escalation dominance can help policymakers recognize when one 
> strategy is sold or characterized in the other’s name. In particular, those who describe escalation dominance as the 
> ability to threaten “a symmetrical and proportional response” <https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=792863> or as a 
> situation in which “[w]hatever move we make, he can match it and go further 
> <https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/how-aiding-the-ukrainian-military-could-push-putin-into-a-regional-war/>,” are 
> more accurately describing flexible response. Similarly, policymakers should be wary of calls for dominance that 
> explain what it takes to compete, but not what it would take to demonstrate clear superiority 
> <https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/why-america-could-lose-war-russia-or-china-22910?page=0%2C2>.
>
> It is possible to view escalation dominance as a stronger form of flexible response rather than a distinct strategy, 
> but there is an important conceptual distinction between casting doubt on the adversary’s ability to win and 
> convincing him that he will lose if the conflict plays out.
>
> What does this distinction look like in practice? If deterrence failure leads to military conflict between the United 
> States and Russia, Russia’s leaders will have to decide whether to seek victory by engaging in more destructive forms 
> of warfare. A successful U.S. flexible response strategy leaves Russia uncertain as to whether escalation would 
> actually deliver victory, but confident that it would bring greater danger its own interests. Russia would then see 
> three plausible outcomes: Russia wins, the United States wins, or things get out of control and everyone loses. 
> Uncertain of which it would be, Russia is less likely to escalate.
>
> In a conflict between the United States and North Korea, the Kim regime would similarly face a decision about whether 
> to escalate. A successful U.S. escalation dominance strategy would mean the United States and its allies have the 
> firepower to defeat North Korea in any type of conflict. Ideally, North Korea would then see defeat as the only 
> plausible outcome. Confident that the United States possesses the means to prevail, North Korea is less likely to 
> escalate.
>
> However, it is important to remember that military superiority does not guarantee victory over an enemy that can 
> continue to cause damage until its defeat is accomplished. A risk-accepting opponent might still escalate and gamble 
> that the dominant side will concede rather than endure the costs of winning. Thus, even dominance cannot assure 
> victory. Still, it does seem like the more reliable way of decreasing the likelihood of escalation. Yet prior to 
> release of the new Nuclear Posture Review, Michael Fitzsimmons, a professor at the U.S. Army War College, urged 
> American policymakersto resist “the false allure of escalation dominance 
> <https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/false-allure-escalation-dominance/>.” Caution is indeed warranted, because 
> dominance is hard to achieve and maintain.
>
> The principal challenge of achieving escalation dominance is that it requires either the ability to fight at every 
> level, or the ability to prevail at a lower level in the face of unmatched adversary escalation. Flexible response, 
> by contrast, requires a range of options but not necessarily at every level. Superiority at some but not all levels 
> is not true dominance because it does not fully mitigate the escalation pressures that dominance seeks to address. 
> One side that can dominate at a higher level but not at lower levels, or that faces an opponent that can dominate at 
> a lower but not at a higher level, will feel pressure to escalate. For example, a Russian perception that the United 
> States can dominate a conventional conflict creates incentive for Russia to escalate 
> <https://globalsecurityreview.com/nuclear-de-escalation-russias-deterrence-strategy/> to a level of nuclear 
> employment, where it can compete better and may win. Incomplete superiority may instead be consistent with flexible 
> response, since it would logically shake the enemy’s confidence but not ensure the ability to prevail.
>
> The principal challenge of maintaining escalation dominance, on the other hand, is that it cannot be mutual and can 
> therefore be unstable. Adversaries cannot both credibly proclaim escalation dominance because only one can possess 
> the clear ability to prevail. Escalation dominance is thus stabilizing on shorter time scales of crisis or conflict, 
> but potentially destabilizing over longer periods of military capability development and acquisition.
>
> These difficulties should not exclude escalation dominance from strategy considerations. Instead, U.S. policymakers 
> should understand that dominance is only viable for countering minor and threshold nuclear adversaries, like North 
> Korea and Iran, that lack the capabilities and economic wherewithal to compete effectively. Only in such cases can 
> the United States reasonably expect to maintain its competitive edge while avoiding undesirable arms-race dynamics.
>
> Escalation Control Strategy in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review
>
> Flexible response and escalation dominance are each suited to countering a different class of adversaries.
>
> Among major nuclear powers, dominance at the highest level of conflict is not an option because significant portions 
> of deployed strategic nuclear forces can be made survivable, and defense against large-scale ballistic missile attack 
> is not feasible. The competitive cost curve favors offense over defense, in that one can buy many strategic warheads 
> for the cost of each effective interceptor. Furthermore, it is the absolute rather than relative effectiveness of 
> defenses that determines the amount of damage ultimately suffered. Defenses that must be 90 percent effective against 
> a minor power to prevent “unacceptable damage” may therefore need to be 99 percent effective against a major power.
>
> With no effective defense against hundreds of Russian ballistic missiles 
> <https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-limits-us-missile-defense-12503>, escalation dominance is not a real option 
> for countering Russia. Superiority at lower levels is also out of reach. At the theater nuclear weapons level the NPR 
> admits that “Russia possesses significant advantage … in non-strategic nuclear forces,” meaning that Russia has 
> greater numbers and greater variety of what are sometimes called “battlefield nukes.” Furthermore, there may be 
> relatively few Russian targets for U.S. tactical nuclear weapons that are both in theater and outside the Russian 
> homeland. Finally, Russia could probably match any U.S. ability to defend against attacks at the level of limited 
> homeland strikes. This is due in part to its willingness to field nuclear-tipped interceptors 
> <https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/02/20/russia-releases-video-of-its-modernized-ballistic-missile-defense-system/>,
>  whereas the United States relies upon the more challenging approach of directly striking incoming warheads in flight 
> <https://www.businessinsider.com/russias-ballistic-missile-defense-works-us-doesnt-2017-7>. Consistent with this 
> finding, the Nuclear Posture Review describes a strategy of convincing Moscow that it “has no advantages in will, 
> non-nuclear capabilities, or nuclear escalation options that enable it to anticipate a possible benefit from 
> non-nuclear aggression or limited nuclear escalation.” This language is about denying Russia confidence in its 
> ability to prevail, as opposed to defeating it outright, in unrestrained conflict.
>
> Similarly, the strategy for China is to “prevent Beijing from mistakenly concluding that it could secure an advantage 
> through the limited use of its theater nuclear capabilities.” Escalation dominance against China might be tempting 
> but is not viable over the long term. The United States cannot expect to dominate at the large-scale strategic level 
> because China’s ongoing nuclear modernization program 
> <https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/china-nuclear-weapons-breakout/> is intently focused on ensuring its ability to 
> operate there effectively. If the United States shifts to a more aggressive approach that seeks to negate Chinese 
> strategic forces, China has the economic capacity 
> <https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/01/china-worlds-largest-economy> to easily outpace these efforts and maintain 
> the strategic objectives of its current program.
>
> When it comes to countering Russia and China, even the less demanding strategy of flexible response sometimes 
> requires adjusting U.S. nuclear capabilities. To help “prevent adversaries from perceiving advantage in limited 
> nuclear escalation,” the Nuclear Posture Review directs lowering the yield of a small number of U.S. ballistic 
> missiles, and potentially restoring a sea-launched cruise missile capability. These supplements do not offer 
> dominance over the most capable opponents, but they do help ensure that future air defenses cannot negate U.S. 
> flexibility to respond at lower levels of escalation.
>
> Though not feasible for countering major nuclear powers, escalation dominance is a viable U.S. strategy against North 
> Korea. The Nuclear Posture Review emphasizes “defensive and offensive capabilities to intercept and otherwise defeat 
> North Korea’s missile capabilities, and thereby limit or preclude North Korea’s ability to conduct effective missile 
> strikes[.]” That is, the United States will protect against and defeat North Korea even at the upper end of that 
> country’s escalation ladder. Furthermore, U.S. policy is to “improve these capabilities as needed to stay ahead of 
> North Korean missile threats” into the indefinite future. This is not a trivial determination, since North Korea’s 
> ballistic missile capabilities have rapidly advanced over the last few years, and some argue that effective defense 
> against even limited ballistic missile attack cannot be maintained 
> <https://warontherocks.com/2017/05/missile-defense-cant-save-us-from-north-korea/> or is already well out of reach 
> <https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/09/no-we-cannot-shoot-down-north-koreas-missiles/141070/>. However, even 
> imperfect U.S. defenses against ballistic missile attack constitute a meaningful advantage over a country with a 
> limited long-range missile force, no such defenses of its own, and without the economic potential to compete over the 
> long term.
>
> Pursuing escalation dominance only against minor nuclear powers addresses most of the challenges Fitzsimmons 
> identified. Flexible response remains the strategy of choice in cases where the conventional force balance might be 
> narrowing. Escalation dominance can indeed drive arms-race dynamics, but the lesson is to never pursue it without the 
> economic potential and the will to successfully race if necessary. Limiting dominance to countering states with 
> markedly inferior military capabilities also diminishes the challenge posed by new and emerging technologies.
>
> The Nuclear Posture Review’s tiered approach to escalation control strategy is sound, but was not a forgone 
> conclusion. Views on how best to counter North Korea range from treating it like Russia and accepting the 
> vulnerability of mutually assured destruction 
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-strategy-deterence.html>, to treating it like Iraq 
> and undertaking preventive war 
> <https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/07/11/north_korea_the_case_for_war_111767.html>. Some argue for 
> pursuing full-spectrum military dominance over China and Russia 
> <https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/why-america-could-lose-war-russia-or-china-22910>, possibly extending up 
> to defense against their ballistic missile forces 
> <https://www.hudson.org/research/14214-build-missile-defense-space-sensors-now>. The Nuclear Posture Review took a 
> measured position that is well-founded, but did not resolve these arguments. Furthermore, the security environment 
> could change in ways that make the current approach untenable.
>
> Over the Next Horizon
>
> The tiered approach to escalation control strategy depends upon a clearly discernible difference between major and 
> minor nuclear powers. Whenever an adversary approaches the point of transitioning from minor to major status, it is 
> likely to strain the framework. For example, China’s conventional military advancement and its emerging nuclear 
> second strike capability have placed it into the flexible response category of U.S. strategy, but the United States 
> remains reluctant to explicitly acknowledge that it is vulnerable to China 
> <https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/to-reassure-u-s-allies-in-asia-admit-mutual-vulnerability-with-china/> at the top 
> of the escalation ladder.
>
> It is North Korea, though, that poses the nearest-term real challenge. If North Korea continues to grow its nuclear 
> forces, then at some point the capability suite the United States must field to stay ahead will look like an attempt 
> to also dominate China <https://warontherocks.com/2017/05/missile-defense-cant-save-us-from-north-korea/>.
>
> This challenge is exacerbated when dominance over North Korea depends on offensive and defensive capabilities — such 
> as the Ground-Based Interceptors <https://www.mda.mil/system/gmd.html> currently at the core of America’s limited 
> homeland ballistic missile defense system — that might also work against China and Russia. Maintaining a distinction 
> between moves aimed at major and minor powers then depends on limiting the scale of U.S. deployments so that they can 
> only threaten the smaller arsenals of minor nuclear powers, and on the ability of major powers to field more 
> effective countermeasures on their offensive missiles. One potential way to keep ahead of the North Korean threat 
> without upsetting the balance with China and Russia is to develop shorter-range boost-phase missile defenses that can 
> cover North Korea <https://fas.org/rlg/airborne.pdf> but cannot reach into the interior of Russia or China 
> <https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018-05/features/improving-us-ballistic-missile-defense-policy>. The United States 
> could then deploy these to the region in lieu of continuing to increase the number of increasingly sophisticated 
> interceptors.
>
> If no such U.S. capability emerges and the North Korea nuclear problem remains unresolved over the next decade or so, 
> the United States will have to either drop its strategy of dominance over North Korea or expect China to expand its 
> nuclear capabilities even beyond current plans.
>
> In any case, as long as adversaries possess the means of escalation, the United States must strive both to deter 
> aggression and to avoid the worst outcomes in conflict. Escalation dominance is a good approach when it is 
> achievable, but its feasibility is highly constrained by the relative capabilities among adversaries as well as their 
> individual ones. In the next chapter of American nuclear strategy, the key challenge will be to respect those limits 
> as the security environment continues to evolve.
>
> Dr. Aaron Miles is a Fellow at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He 
> served previously as Assistant Director for Nuclear and Strategic Technologies at the White House Office of Science 
> and Technology Policy, and as a Senior Policy Advisor on Nuclear Deterrence in the Office of the Secretary of 
> Defense. His policy interests include nuclear strategy 
> <https://www.armscontrol.org/ACT/2016_11/Features/The-Logic-of-Integrating-Conventional-and-Nuclear-Planning>, 
> strategic stability <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01495933.2016.1241005>, and arms control 
> <https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/02/07/progress_on_strategic_arms_control_110760.html>.
>
> Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, for the U.S. 
> Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.
>
> Image: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons/Flickr <https://www.flickr.com/photos/icanw/7936242620/>
> Commentary <https://warontherocks.com/category/commentary/>


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