The Absolute Weapon and the Ultimate High Ground: Why Nuclear Deterrence
and Space Deterrence Are Strikingly Similar - Yet Profoundly Different
Karl Mueller, Stimson Center 11/11/14
Do nuclear and space deterrence have more in common with each other than
other versions of the theory? The contrasts between these two particular
forms of deterrence are far more pronounced and instructive than their
similarities.
In his introductory essay to this volume, Michael Krepon surveys and
compares nuclear deterrence to the related and still rather nascent policy
arena of space deterrence. This chapter takes another look at space
deterrence, approaching the comparison from a slightly different direction
by focusing on theory and strategic principles while giving short shrift to
the history of the policy-making in question that his chapter presents in
detail.(1)
The connections between space power and deterrence have been a matter of
increasing interest in recent years as the United States has become more
and more dependent on space systems to perform essential military
functions, and as the rise of China has demonstrated that deterrence is
central to national security policy in all ages, rather than being
something that mostly mattered during the Cold War. As we think about these
connections, it is natural to turn to nuclear deterrence in a search for
useful analogies. The study of nuclear deterrence, embracing both
theoretical and practical dimensions, has achieved the often elusive
objective for a highly theoretical discipline of actually having been
useful to policymakers.
Nuclear power is different from conventional power in important respects,
and space power is different from terrestrial power. Does understanding
nuclear deterrence, in particular, give us useful insights into deterrence
in space? Or do nuclear and space deterrence have more in common with each
other than they do with other varieties of deterrence? It would be nice if
the answer were “yes” because decades of thinking very hard about nuclear
deterrence has resulted in a well-developed body of theory about it,(2)
although much of it has not been tested due to the absence of nuclear wars
and the infrequency of deep nuclear crises. Even though we have seen no
nuclear weapons fired in anger since 1945, deterrence is not mere
guesswork: The absence of explosions does not indicate the absence of
deterrence; it indicates the absence of deterrence failures.
This brief essay will argue, or at least assert, that it is important for
anyone seeking to understand space deterrence to have a basic mastery of
nuclear deterrence – indeed, anyone seriously interested in national
security affairs at the level of relationships between major states ought
to have a grasp of this now relatively neglected subject. There are
noteworthy analogical nuggets to be found in such a comparison – some
metaphorical, others more concrete. But in the end, nuclear deterrence and
space deterrence differ in so many ways that the contrasts between them are
far more pronounced, and more illuminating, than the characteristics that
they have in common.
Deterrence
It is not only natural but essential to begin by establishing what
deterrence is and how it works in general. The term is often bandied about
with limited regard for conceptual precision, and, even among those who do
concern themselves with clearly defining deterrence, there is less
consensus about what it does and does not comprise than one might expect.
Search the political science literature for explicit and implicit
definitions of deterrence – if one has nothing better to do – and one will
find disagreements about whether it is proper to apply the deterrence label
to threats of denial as well as punishment, to promises as well as threats,
to wars being averted by external conditions or self-restraint as well as
deliberate signaling by an opponent, to the non-occurrence of wars that no
one was very interested in starting in the first place, to preventing wars
before a crisis occurs, and even (though mostly in works of several decades
past) whether there can be such a thing as non-nuclear deterrence.
Usually a broad definition of deterrence is most useful for scholarship,
and even more so for policymakers who are interested in results more than
debates about taxonomy. For the present discussion, it will suffice to say
that deterrence refers to trying to cause someone not to do something (such
as starting a war) by changing their expectations about the consequences of
their potential actions (and also to the outcome of such efforts if they
are successful). Deterrence is a subset of coercion,(3) and can (and
should) be differentiated from actions that reduce or eliminate the
adversary’s ability or opportunity to misbehave instead of deterring it
from doing so; the latter is the domain of “brute” or “pure force,”
destruction or unconditional appeasement.(4)
This is not the place for an extensive primer on deterrence, so I will
settle for making four important points about the subject. First, and most
fundamentally, deterrence is something that occurs in the mind of the
enemy. It is a function of the opponent’s expectations, which in turn
depend on their perceptions and beliefs; objective reality usually affects
these, but when what is real diverges from what is perceived, it is the
latter that matters. (In contrast, defense is what happens if deterrence
fails, at which point objective reality takes over.) Thus, bluffs may deter
but will not provide protection if they are called, while the opposite is
true of defenses that the enemy does not know about. Similarly, escalation
thresholds are what the actor responding to them thinks they are which may
not align with the expectations of an adversary.(5)
Second, deterrence is about the relative attractiveness or unattractiveness
of alternative courses of action. States do not go to war because they
expect to win, they do so because they expect to be better off if they
attack than if they do not. If the expected value of the status quo is very
low (if the enemy “has nothing to lose”), even a very risky action may be
preferable (picture Japan in 1941), while an actor who is well contented
with his current situation may find even the prospect of cheap and easy
victories to hold little appeal. For the deterrence practitioner this means
it is always important to consider how the alternatives will stack up
against each other in the opponent’s eyes, and to keep in mind that making
the status quo look better can be just as useful for deterrence as making
war look worse.(6)
This leads into the third point, which is that there are many ways to
deter, since there are multiple approaches to making an opponent think that
starting a war or escalating a conflict would be worse than not doing so.
Prudent deterrers will look for opportunities to exploit across this range,
and will be attentive to the risk that a threat or promise in one avenue
will undermine deterrence efforts in another:(7)
Punitive deterrence involves increasing the expected costs of one or
more potential outcomes of the action to be deterred. Examples range from
retaliatory nuclear attacks to inflicting a lot of casualties on the
battlefield to threats of economic or diplomatic punishment – including by
third parties. The most potent punitive threat will be ones that apply
whether or not the opponents’ action succeeds.
Deterrence by denial works by making the desired outcome of an action,
such as victory in a war, appear less likely and some less appealing
outcome look more likely. Decreasing your apparent vulnerability to an
attack is a good way to discourage it, but some threats are harder to foil
than others, and relatively weak deterrers may have little ability to
threaten defeat or even frustration against a more powerful opponent.
Rewards and reassurance (positive deterrence if you prefer) seek to
make aggression or escalation less attractive by making the status quo look
more beneficial or less dangerous to the potential adversary. If the
opponent expects that the result of restraint will simply be a war on less
favorable terms later, there will be little incentive for restraint.
Unconditional measures of various sorts can also contribute to the
prospects for deterrence, though strictly speaking they are not coercion.
Destroying a key enemy military capability before it is used can make a
threat less dire; at the other end of the spectrum, settling an existing
dispute may eliminate the principal motive that might otherwise lead to war.
Finally, when moving from the theoretical plane to making strategy for the
real world, talking about deterrence in general is rarely very useful,
instead it is essential to specify whom you want to deter from doing what
(and under what conditions). Even for the same opponent, the best approach
for deterring it from taking action A may not be ideal, or even effective,
for deterring it from closely related action B. Conversely, a strategy that
is well suited to deterring one target from a particular form of
misbehavior may be a very poor choice for deterring someone else from doing
the same thing.
Nuclear Deterrence
With this last point firmly in mind, it is worth taking a moment to be
clear about what the term “nuclear deterrence” means, which is not quite as
simple an issue as one might assume. In everyday conversation, nuclear
deterrence usually refers to using nuclear threats or nuclear weapons
(which is more or less the same thing most of the time) as a deterrent
tool. Thus, we might argue about whether nuclear deterrence can be relied
upon in a particular case not only to deter an opponent from employing
nuclear weapons but also to deter any number of non-nuclear actions such as
invading a neighbor using conventional military forces. However, for the
purposes of comparing nuclear and space deterrence, it will be more useful
if we instead scope our consideration of nuclear deterrence based on what
is being deterred rather than what is being used to do it: that is, to
think about how the use of nuclear weapons has been and can be deterred,
whether by threats of nuclear response or other means entirely, including
but not limited to conventional military action.
Space Deterrence
The reason for framing nuclear deterrence as deterrence of nuclear use
rather than deterrence by nuclear threat is that when we talk about space
deterrence we almost always have in mind deterring attacks against
satellites and related space systems, not the use of space capabilities for
deterrent purposes, which is a vast and multifaceted subject given the
variety of functions that space systems perform.(8) However, this is still
quite vague by the standards of the “deterring whom from doing what?”
criterion.
There are many ways to attack or interfere with satellite operations,
ranging from the literally inoffensive (such as deception measures against
imaging) through various flavors of jamming, dazzling and other non-kinetic
attacks with either temporary or lasting effects, up to outright attacks by
projectiles, directed energy weapons or other means to damage or destroy
satellites. (Alternatively, targeting the ground segments of space systems
may be an easier and more attractive option, but this largely falls outside
of what we usually have in mind when discussing space deterrence, since
deterring such actions is essentially the same as dealing with threats to
other terrestrial targets.) For the purposes of this discussion, we will
focus on the high end of the scale, leaving aside low-grade interference
with satellites or the services they provide; also omitted will be any
serious consideration of cyberattacks directed against space-related
systems, since deterring such actions involves a broad topic of deterrence
analysis unto itself.(9) Thus, references to “space weapons” in the pages
that follow can be read as synonymous with “anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons,”
always keeping in mind that among the ranks of potential ASATs are a
variety of weapons and tools that are primarily intended for other
purposes, from mid-course ballistic missile defenses to manned
spacecraft.(10)
The issue of who might need deterring and under what circumstances often
receives less attention than it merits. It is easy to list a wide variety
of potential adversaries who might be interested in launching ASAT attacks
against the United States or its allies if they had the capability to do
so, but in practice there is a relatively limited set of opponents and
scenarios that appear to be plausible foci for space deterrence concern
rather than merely being imaginable.
It is worth noting that in virtually every conflict the United States is
vulnerable to at-tack in many forms and many places that are not actually
carried out, either because enemies lack the inclination to do so (before
or after taking the likely consequences into account), because they lack
the imagination to recognize the possibility, or be-cause they have more
attractive things to do with their capabilities. Although satellites are
intrinsically vulnerable to attack in absolute terms, thanks to orbital
mechanics and the limited potential for concealment in space, on the whole
they tend to be relatively challenging targets for physical attack when
compared with the relevant alter-natives. The most economically valuable
satellites, and many of the most militarily important ones, operate in high
orbits that make them much more difficult to attack than their counterparts
in low Earth orbit (LEO). Moreover, enemies interested in inflicting
economic damage or psychological trauma on the United States will find many
easier ways to do at least as much harm by striking terrestrial targets.
This is likely to be less true for attacks seeking to cause military damage
or disruption, but even there, striking at the ground segments of space
systems, or interfering with their effective operation through terrestrial
jamming or other means, will often be easier than attacking the satellites
themselves in orbit.
Yet there are conditions under which attacking US satellites might indeed
appear to be sound policy for an adversary, even though these are likely to
be more limited than is often supposed. Three sets of circumstances loom
especially large. The first is situations in which an ASAT attack, or a
series of them, would offer a substantial military payoff in a situation of
ongoing or imminent crisis or conflict. This would be most likely if
attacking satellites were a way to exploit key vulnerabilities of US
military power; how substantial the potential for that to be the case in
the future will depend greatly on the ways in which the United States
carries out the various elements of its military transformation plans over
the coming generation, in addition to how well it deals with the challenges
of satellite protection per se. Achieving such effects on a large scale
would require considerable ASAT capabilities, and thus would likely be the
purview of relatively major powers.(11)
Second, ASAT attacks promising more limited benefits might be attractive in
cases where ASAT capabilities had already been built – perhaps only as a
deterrent to US ASAT attacks – and a conflict or crisis subsequently broke
out in which it appeared likely that the systems eventually would be
destroyed or rendered ineffective: a “use it or lose it” situation. In a
conflict in which the adversary faced the prospect of conquest or regime
change being imposed by the United States, of course, every weapon would
fall into the “use it or lose it” category, and high stakes (and possibly
psychological desperation) could be expected to make deterrence
particularly difficult.
Third, ASAT attacks could be appealing by offering a way to attack the
United States or its allies (or to send a powerful coercive signal about
one’s willingness to use force) while limiting escalation risks, making
retaliation problematic or allowing the state launching them to maintain
the moral high ground. Damaging or destroying satellites could cause
considerable economic or perhaps military damage without killing many
people – depending on the nature of the attack it is conceivable there
would be no immediate loss of life – and without attacking the adversary’s
homeland. Among the possibilities, a high-altitude nuclear detonation could
offer a way to employ nuclear weapons without causing mass destruction, in
response to which the likelihood of US nuclear retaliation might appear to
be quite low.
Similarities: The Power of Rocket Science
Why should we expect nuclear and space deterrence, and nuclear and space
power more generally, to have a lot in common a quarter century after the
end of the Cold War? (12) That the association seems intuitively natural,
at least at first, would seem to have much to do with the technologies that
underpin these policy realms.
Perhaps the most obvious nuclear-space parallel is that power and
deterrence in both cases are conspicuously and intimately connected to
space age (and information age) physics. This matters on at least two
levels. One is that to participate usefully in discussions of either
nuclear or space deterrence it is necessary to have a basic grasp of the
science involved in the field, as well as an understanding of deterrence
and of the larger strategic context. This does not mean that one has to be
able to design an atomic bomb, a missile or a satellite to discuss them
intelligently, or that having deep expertise in the science or engineering
of either field necessarily will make one more astute about related policy
issues than someone with more rudimentary knowledge of the subject – Albert
Einstein was far from prescient about the realities of a nuclear-armed
world. But just as knowing the difference between a bomber and a ballistic
missile or why multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs)
mattered was indispensable for thinking about nuclear deterrence in the
Cold War, and understanding the differences between nuclear and chemical
weapons is essential to discussing weapons of mass destruction
intelligently today, wrestling with issues of space deterrence requires
knowing something about orbits and gravity wells and the functions that
satellites perform.
This isn’t really a problem – or rather it shouldn’t be. A bright
undergraduate can learn enough about nuclear weapons and strategy in a few
hours to opine intelligently about nuclear deterrence. Space is somewhat
more complicated, but the intellectual entry costs are also far from
prohibitive.(13) Yet military space power has become – indeed it has always
been – primarily the preserve of a relatively small group of specialists,
both within the US Air Force and other armed services and in the broader
policy-making and policy-assessing world. A variety of factors contribute
to this, some relate to the domain knowledge being fairly arcane, some are
sociological and all are reinforced by the secrecy that surrounds many
national security space activities and programs, particularly the most
advanced and expensive ones. Something analogous is true of nuclear
strategy and policy, particularly since the end of the Cold War when the
use of nuclear weapons seemed to become a far more remote possibility and
interest in nuclear arms control diminished accordingly – as did the
attention devoted to the subject in staff and war colleges, civilian
universities and most other places where is-sues of nuclear policy were
once matters of mainstream concern and debate.(14)
In practice, the peripheralization and sometimes isolation of the
communities of nuclear experts and space experts can have potentially
serious consequences. It can narrow or stifle debate and innovation
(although this is not inevitable – isolation can also create space for
innovation by excluding people who would interfere with it) and may
facilitate or perpetuate dysfunctional processes or policies. More
dangerously, if nuclear or space strategy becomes a domain disconnected
from the broader national security community, either inside or outside of
government, it can leave the United States ill-prepared to deal with crises
and other events involving these capabilities by making them less familiar
to non-specialist military and civilian leaders. Coming to grips with the
realities of space power and space deterrence, as with the corresponding
nuclear issues, is not something to undertake once a crisis in which they
loom large is already underway.
Proliferation
Nuclear and military space capabilities both began as the exclusive domain
of the superpowers, and subsequently have spread gradually to other
countries. Originally the entry costs of nuclear weapons and space programs
were astronomical. Beyond the United States and the Soviet Union, many of
the largest and wealthiest major powers decided not to take on the expense
and inconveniences associated with making the effort to join the nuclear
club – and powers that did generally contented themselves with relatively
small arsenals.
Over the past 50 years, the economic barriers to becoming a nuclear power
have eroded to some degree. It is still no small matter to achieve entry
into the nuclear club, but much of this difficulty is due to deliberate
action to raise political and other obstacles to nuclear proliferation. As
South Africa demonstrated in the 1980s, developing a basic atomic weapons
capability has become something that virtually any sizable, sufficiently
motivated state can achieve eventually. North Korea more recently drove
this point home. That relatively little nuclear proliferation actually
occurs reflects a dearth of countries that want the bomb more than a lack
of countries’ abilities to acquire it.
The story is not terribly different in space. Here we are not thinking so
much about the growing roster of states that have become spacefaring by
owning their own satellites as about the slower but significant spread of
space launch, ballistic missile and other capabilities that could be used
as the basis for operational antisatellite capabilities.(15)
As with nuclear weapons, the entry costs are considerable, requiring the
resources of a state rather than an eBay account and a credit card, but it
is now a game in which states other than superpowers certainly can play.
There is also a clear parallel between the proliferation of nuclear and
space capabilities on the political side: No state has ever developed
nuclear weapons or substantial military space assets just for their cachet,
but considerations of prestige can figure into such decisions to an
important degree, as illustrated by the Cold War space and arms races
between the United States and the USSR.16 This can matter to deterrence by,
for example, leading governments to acquire or maintain destabilizing
weapons for reasons other than their strategic utility, or contributing to
provocative arms racing behavior.
These things being said, it is worth noting that there are important
differences be-tween joining the nuclear and the military spacefaring
clubs. One is that civil and national security space tends to be very
intertwined on multiple levels, so states can find the need to contemplate
issues of space power and space deterrence thrust upon them as a result of
going into space for reasons that have little to do with military power. In
contrast, while civil nuclear programs and nuclear weapons programs can
certainly be related to each other, states do not, as a rule, stumble into
becoming nuclear powers, 17 though they may well achieve that status
without having fully thought through all of its implications.
Another contrast is that, so far, nuclear weapons have always remained in
the clear possession of a single state, or at most a few states under a
dual-key arrangement where the weapon belongs to one country but is based
in, and perhaps delivered by, a system belonging to a close ally. For many
space systems against which the United States might want to deter attack,
things are not so simple. Satellite constellation may be owned by
international consortia or multinational corporations, for example, and
there might be many users of a single system, changing frequently as
transponder leases change or new contracts are let for space-based
services. This makes deterrence more complicated, though greater complexity
doesn’t necessarily imply greater difficulty. For example, one argument in
favor of US military use of non-US satellites for functions like
communications is that an enemy might be reluctant to attack third-party
satellites with a broad customer base in a situation where it would be
willing to attack ones whose loss would hurt only the United States.
Crisis Stability
Of central importance to deterrence, more or less by definition, are issues
of crisis stability.(17) When prospective combatants have strong incentives
to strike first in a confrontation, because they would be much better off
by doing so than if the opponent landed the first blow, deterrence becomes
much more difficult than if there is little incentive for preemption. The
same is true for decisions about whether to take escalatory action in a
conflict already underway. Here, again, there are noteworthy parallels
between nuclear and space deterrence. (There are important differences as
well, and we will return to the subject of crisis stability in the next
section.)
The two most important of these similarities both derive from the tendency
for nuclear and ASAT attacks to be difficult to defend against. Defending
against ASAT attacks tends to be hard because of physics and the geography
of orbital space: Satellites are difficult, even often impossible, to
conceal and difficult or costly to maneuver out of harm’s way. Defending
against nuclear strikes can also be very hard, particularly when the
weapons are delivered by ballistic missiles, but the fundamental problem
with trying to intercept incoming nuclear warheads is that even defenses
with a high success rate may be of little strategic value because a very
small number of “leakers” can be sufficient to cause vast destruction. If
an attacker has high confidence that an attack of either type will be at
least operationally successful because defenses are not effective,
deterrence efforts will need to focus on punishment and reward strategies
because deterrence by denial will have little to offer. This is a problem
that extends beyond the confines of crisis stability, but it can be
especially acute in a crisis by creating powerful incentives for a first
strike if war appears inevitable, or even merely likely. Moreover, when the
stakes are high, making punitive threats (or reward offers) that are
powerful enough to deter, absent being able to threaten an attacker with
actual defeat, can be a very difficult strategic mountain to climb.
The second issue is closely related. Under conditions of real or perceived
first-strike advantage, and with weapons for which tactical warning from
detection to attack may be measured in minutes (or even less for some
directed energy attacks or for attacks by prepositioned “space mines”),
decision-making timelines are likely to be very com-pressed.(18) This can
cause or contribute to a witch’s brew of pathological effects, limiting
opportunities for communication and signaling between adversaries or
mediation by third parties, constraining the collection and analysis of
information and consideration of alternative options, even causing panic
and other psychological problems for decision makers under intense
pressure.(19)
It is important to qualify this discussion, however. While defense against
nuclear and ASAT attacks tends to be difficult, the verb is intentionally
tentative; the extent to which the tendency manifests itself in practice
will depend on the weapons and defenses that the nations involved choose to
deploy. Weapons that are vulnerable to at-tack will threaten crisis
stability much more than ones that have a reasonable prospect of surviving
an enemy first strike; weapons that are particularly or only vulnerable to
surprise attack are likely to be especially destabilizing. Thus systems
such as unhardened, MIRVed, land-based ballistic missiles or space-based
ASAT laser weapons are crisis stability nightmares, combining offensive
usefulness with great potential vulnerability that creates
“use-it-or-lose-it” incentives for decision makers not to risk allowing a
powerful adversary to strike first.
Environmental Effects
As a coda to close out this enumeration of parallels between the arenas of
nuclear and space deterrence, it is also worth noting briefly the
similarities among some of the potential environmental consequences of
nuclear and space warfare. The physics of nuclear fallout and of orbital
debris due to kinetic-energy ASAT attacks are entirely different, but from
a policy perspective they have much in common. Both are potentially serious
and, on a large enough scale, catastrophic contamination threats that
originate as collateral effects of particular attack methodologies – or
that can be generated deliberately as a means of inflicting additional harm
on an enemy. Because their effects are essentially indiscriminate,
affecting geographically vulnerable bystanders without regard for national
borders, they magnify the extent to which deterring nuclear or space combat
is a matter of concern to non-belligerents, and cast a long shadow over
issues of weapon investment and testing.
At the extreme end of the scale, it is not unreasonable also to suggest
that there is more than a passing resemblance between “nuclear winter”
fears during the Cold War and the threat of nuclear ASAT use making large
swaths of low-earth-orbital space uninhabitable for unhardened satellites
due to the excitation of the Van Allen radiation belts that could persist
for months or years. The latter effect would be far less cataclysmic, and
more easily generated, than the former, but both would have global and
relatively long-term consequences that bear heavily on the deterrence
calculus for prospective attacks that might trigger such results.
Differences: An Abundance of Uniqueness
These and other parallels between nuclear and space deterrence, and between
nuclear and space power more generally, are significant and can be
illuminating; failing to be aware of them would certainly be unfortunate.
On the other hand, not recognizing the differences between the two subjects
can be actively perilous, leading to misconceptions that invite strategic
surprise and major policy missteps.
Theory
In spite of the similarities identified above, nuclear deterrence and space
deterrence aren’t really parallel concepts. Indeed, it is not entirely
clear that space deterrence is a very useful construct – we do not speak of
air or naval deterrence as distinct categories, after all, because of the
degree to which conventional warfare in different do-mains is usually
intermingled. Military space activities, too, are intimately connected to
operations and capabilities in the other domains. This is not to say that
deterring attacks against satellites and other space-related targets is not
a matter of importance, only that it is a policy problem that may be less
separate from other deterrence challenges than is often assumed.
Yet space really is different – the unique operating environment and, above
all, the physics of orbital mechanics, create an operational and strategic
world in which conventional wisdom often does not apply. The same can be
said of nuclear strategy and deterrence, but it does not follow that
because space and nuclear power each work differently from conventional
military power they must then resemble each other. For example, during the
Cold War it was often noted that nuclear weapons could turn familiar
notions of offense and defense upside down: Strategically, threatening to
attack an enemy’s nuclear arsenal was offensive, but threatening to
annihilate enemy cities was fundamentally defensive, albeit unsavory.
Similarly strategic defenses threatened to undermine deterrence if they
protected a superpower’s cities, but not if they only defended its
retaliatory nuclear capabilities. In space warfare, too, the meanings of
offense and defense familiar from settings such as air warfare become
inverted, though in a different way. In this realm, attacking enemy
satellites even over one’s own territory is reckoned to be offensive
counter-space activity, while protecting one’s own satellites as they
overfly the enemy is defensive.
More central to space deterrence, it is worth considering a very basic
question: Is attacking another state’s satellites a step up the escalation
ladder from attacking terrestrial forces, or a step down?(20) Discussions
about how to deter antisatellite attacks often take for granted the idea
that, if possible, we should try to contain the use of force within the
atmosphere, frequently proposing that the US government declare redlines to
emphasize that ASAT attacks will be treated as extremely grave offenses,
inviting severe responses. One could look alternatively at warfare in space
and conclude that with a low expected body count, it should be considered
milder than terrestrial conflict. Chinese writings that touch on this
subject generally adopt a perspective that sees attacks on enemy space
systems as unexceptional. The point here is not that one attitude is the
correct one, but that the answer is sufficiently ambiguous that there is
considerable potential for deterrence to be complicated by a lack of common
thinking between the parties concerned. Such misunderstandings are by no
means impossible when it comes to nuclear deterrence, but they are more
likely to be limited in scope given the power of nuclear threats to
concentrate the mind.
Destructiveness
The most fundamental difference between nuclear and space weapons and, in
turn, between nuclear and space deterrence, is one of the simplest: Nuclear
weapons are extremely destructive. This can seem like a truism, certainly
everyone knows that it is true, yet it is surprisingly easy to discount –
perhaps the clearest illustration is the frequency with which we refer to
“weapons of mass destruction” or even “CBRNE” weapons – lumping nuclear
weapons together with vastly less destructive ones.(21)
The reason we speak of “the absolute weapon” and “the nuclear revolution”
is that the difference in destructive power between conventional and
nuclear explosives makes the latter qualitatively different from the
former, with relatively modest arsenals being capable of inflicting truly
catastrophic harm on an enemy in relatively short order. (22)
Crucially, in many cases, even a state that is losing a war would be able
to threaten to inflict such harm against a successful adversary. It is this
result of the coupling of nuclear weapons with airpower and missiles that
makes nuclear strategy and nuclear deterrence distinctive. Among states
with reasonably robust nuclear arsenals, all that is really required is a
reasonable expectation that one’s retaliatory capabilities will not be
eliminated or disabled by an enemy’s first strike. There are very powerful
incentives to avoid war, or to avoid very much escalation if a limited
conflict does break out. This does not mean that deterrence will never fail
or that escalation will always be controlled, but the deck should be
relatively well stacked in favor of strategic stability and successful
deterrence.
For space weapons and space deterrence the situation is very different.
There may still be strong reasons for mutual restraint, but the prospect of
catastrophic human costs if a war breaks out in space or if a terrestrial
conflict spreads there is not likely to be one of them. Instead, one of the
reasons that attacks on space systems might be attractive is their
potential to cause the enemy great military or economic harm without
generating a large body count. Indeed, some early advocates of space
weapons development argued for the merits of shifting military competition
and conflict into space at least partly on such humanitarian grounds. (Even
nuclear weapons might be employed in space without killing many people,
possibly none at all.) (23)
Consequently, there is little reason for leaders to quail at the prospect
of using weapons in space during a conflict as they do with respect to
employing nuclear weapons. To be sure, attacking an enemy in space would
likely appear to be a dramatic action of much import, particularly because
it would be largely unprecedented. However, once the decision to go to war,
or even to risk war, against a powerful enemy has been taken, the
significance of also employing space weapons is likely to be figuratively,
as well as literally, marginal. The problem of convincing an enemy that is
willing to fight the United States within the confines of the atmosphere
that it should not also be willing to extend that conflict to space, if
doing so appears militarily advantageous, is a daunting deterrent challenge.
Another consequence of the destructive power of nuclear weapons is that
once a state possesses even a fairly small number of deliverable nuclear
weapons, the size and sophistication of its arsenal is likely to matter
less for deterrence than the apparent willingness to use it. Under most
circumstances, credibility is less of an issue for anti-satellite weapons –
threats to employ them are more likely to be believed because the intrinsic
costs of doing so will be lower – but their actual capabilities will tend
to be in doubt until they are demonstrated. Therefore, the incentives to
offer such demonstrations prior to a conflict may be great, either for
deterrent or compellent leverage.
Strategic Stability
We have already mentioned the issue of stability and first-strike advantage
in nuclear and space strategy when discussing nuclear-space parallels,
noting that both nuclear and space weapons tend to be hard to defend
against. However, this similarity at the tactical and operational level
breaks down on a broader scale. Viewed strategically, nuclear weapons tend
strongly to favor the defense because it is so difficult to disarm a
competent nuclear-armed opponent decisively through aggressive action,
given that even a small number of surviving weapons can matter so much. In
space, on the other hand, offense dominance scales up: a power that strikes
aggressively should be, in theory, able to get the upper hand, or at least
get the greatest possible use out of what-ever offensive counter-space
capabilities it has invested in.
One of the reasons for this difference is that space weapons, and military
space capabilities more generally, derive their significance from the roles
that they play and the impact that they have in terrestrial warfare.(24)
One might still wage a space war in isolation, with no accompanying
hostilities occurring on the planet below, but even in such a case losses
of space capabilities, even the control of space itself, would matter
because of how advantages gained in space subsequently might be translated
into military, coercive or other benefits in the terrestrial arena. Nuclear
weapons also can be closely coupled to terrestrial warfare but, at the end
of the day, they tend to trump conventional uses of force.
Once again we need to recognize that offense or defense dominance is
ultimately shaped by the weapons that states build and the doctrines they
embrace. It is possible, by accident or design, to develop force postures
that enhance or weaken stability even when the basic attributes of key
military technologies lean in another direction – this is not a simple
matter of technological determinism. That being said, however, the tendency
for nuclear weapons to make conquest and aggression more difficult rather
than easier is extremely powerful, although one reason that nuclear
deterrence tends to be robust is that nuclear deterrence failures have such
potential to be horrific, which is the fundamental mechanism underpinning
mutual assured destruction. Space warfare has no analogue for such secure
second strike capability that could be similarly stabilizing, in spite of
potential options to threaten a spacefaring state with very great harm by
attacking its highly valued space assets.
Conclusion
As this essay has sought to sketch out, the parallels between nuclear and
space deterrence are thought provoking and potentially illuminating.
However, each of these do-mains involves key characteristics that are
unique to it, so understanding one does not imply or constitute mastery of
the other. The sense that there ought to be a close coupling between the
two subjects may be due in part to the fact that each is exceptional.
Bernard Brodie bestowed the label “the absolute weapon” on nuclear arms,
establishing a tradition that was carried on by generations of nuclear
scholars.(25) These are profoundly unconventional weapons because of their
immense and unrivaled destructive power, which fundamentally shapes
deterrence involving them in many ways even though the basic principles of
deterrence still apply.
Space has its own superlative: It is “the ultimate high ground.”(26) But
this is a metaphor that must be handled with care. Space is not merely a
higher-altitude version of air, it is a different operational environment,
governed by a different set of physical laws. Orbital mechanics instead of
aerodynamics make LEO space territorially indivisible; lack of traditional
terrain or terrestrial weather create a unique landscape where it is
difficult to hide; and time and distance operate on different scales than
on the ground or in the air. This makes space ideal for performing some
military functions, almost all of them involving the collection or
transmission of information, and very ill-suited for others that can
usually be far better performed by terrestrial or aerial systems that are
not hundreds or thousands of miles away from their targets.(27) All of
these considerations contribute to making space deterrence something
different from nuclear or some other form of deterrence transplanted to a
domain that is colder, darker and less familiar.
Because of the increasing centrality of nuclear, space and cyber issues to
national security concerns in the 21st century, each of these deterrence
domains (which we might respectively tag as “stronger, higher, faster” to
borrow and reshuffle a familiar slogan) stands to be more and more
important to deterrence problems in coming years. Each involves distinctive
dynamics and accordingly needs to be addressed on its own terms. But in
doing so, it is essential not to treat any of them in isolation from the
others or from the broader field of deterrence, lest their
interconnections, both in theory and in practice, be overlooked.
(1) This essay reflects the views of the author, not those of any of his
employers or the United States government.
(2) See Karl P. Mueller, “Strategic Airpower and Nuclear Strategy: New
Theory for a Not-Quite-So-New Apocalypse,” in The Paths of Heaven: The
Evolution of Airpower Theory, ed. Phillip S. Meilinger (Maxwell AFB, Ala.:
Air University Press, 1997), 279-320.
(3) As explained by Thomas Schelling in Arms and Influence (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966), coercion comprises deterrence and
compellence, which resemble each other in most respects but differ in the
nature of the coercive demand, with deterrence seeking to prevent a change
of behavior and compellence seeking to cause one.
(4) Ibid.; Glenn H. Snyder, Deterrence and Defense (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1961). Coercion can also be distinguished from
persuasion, which seeks to alter the target’s preferences or desires rather
than merely to alter its calculations about how best to serve its existing
interests.
(5) Forrest E. Morgan et al., Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in
the 21st Century (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corp., 2008), 7-46.
(6) Referring to this as “positive deterrence” (Thomas W. Milburn, “What
Constitutes Effective Deterrence?” Journal of Conflict Resolution 3, no. 2
(1959): 138-145) unfortunately never has caught on, but whether one accepts
the use of the “deterrence” label for the category, such positive sanctions
of reward and reassurance, or the lack of them, are central to explaining
many a deterrence success or failure. For a relatively rare examination of
the differences between using threats and promises, see David A. Baldwin,
“The Power of Positive Sanctions,” World Politics 24, no. 1 (October 1971):
19-38.
(7) For more discussion of the whole subject in a small package, see Karl
P. Mueller, “The Essence of Coercive Air Power: A Primer for Military
Strategists,” Royal Air Force Air Power Review, 4, no. 3 (Autumn 2001):
45-56,
http://www.airpowerstudies.co.uk/site-buildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/aprvol4no3.pdf
.
(8) For a more extensive discussion of the subject, see in addition to
other essays in this volume Forrest E. Morgan, Deterrence and First-Strike
Stability in Space (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corp., 2010).
(9) See Martin C. Libicki, Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar (Santa Monica,
Calif.: RAND Corp., 2009).
(10) Karl P. Mueller, “Totem and Taboo: Depolarizing the Space
Weaponization Debate,” Astro politics 1, no. 1 (Summer 2003): 4-28.
(11) This picture might look significantly different when considering the
possibility of ASAT attacks using nuclear weapons. This would open the door
to the use of one or a few weapons having disproportionately widespread
effects, and the technological demands of adapting nuclear weapons and
long-range ballistic missiles to the anti-satellite role are relatively
small once one possesses and operates the systems for other purposes.
However, it is worth keeping in mind that the incentives not to use nuclear
weapons are quite powerful, even under fairly extreme circumstances. This
does not mean that deterrence would necessarily succeed, but merely that
the theoretical potential for nuclear ASAT use is likely to be quite a bit
greater than the reality.
(12) During the height of the US-Soviet military confrontation, the
interconnections between nuclear weapons and national security space
capabilities were so intense that it was not uncommon to see the latter
almost entirely through the lens of the former, as in David E. Lupton, On
Space Warfare: A Space Power Doctrine (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University
Press, June 1988).
(13) See, for example, Barry D. Watts, The Military Use of Space: A
Diagnostic Assessment (Washington: Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments, 2001).
(14) The onetime popularization of knowledge about and interest in nuclear
weapons policy was by no means just an inevitable result of nuclear
tensions and arms races. Rather, it owed much to deliberate efforts to
broaden debates on the subject beyond the ranks of governmental and
technical specialists. See, for example, Ground Zero [Roger C. Molander],
Nuclear War: What’s in it for You? (New York: Pocket Books, 1982).
(15) As noted above, there are also other means of interfering with space
activities that pose smaller resource demands, including jamming,
cybertattacks and old-fashioned kinetic attacks against ground elements of
space systems.
(16) The preeminent examination of motives for nuclear proliferation is
Scott D. Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in
Search of a Bomb,” International Security 21, no. 3 (Winter 1996/97): 54-86.
(17) This is not to suggest that crises always precede wars, or that even
when they do, they always present an opportunity for deterrence to succeed
in the breach. Sometimes states simply decide that the deterrence calculus
favors going to war and don’t bother with an 11th-hour showdown, or wish to
avoid tipping their hand in order to execute a surprise attack.
(18) It is easy to forget that because space is very large, many types of
ASAT attacks (or hypothetical space-to-earth attacks) would not happen
instantaneously, due to interceptor flight times or the limitations of
orbital mechanics. However, unambiguous warning of imminent attacks might
be very late in coming, and in some cases recognizing attacks even after
the fact could be problematic.
(19) Irving L. Janis and Leon Mann, Decision Making (New York: Free Press,
1977); Robert Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, eds.,
Psychology and Deterrence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985).
(20) I have argued elsewhere (Morgan et al., Dangerous Thresholds ) that
the antediluvian metaphor of a ladder of escalation is best avoided for a
host of reasons, not least being that one cannot accidentally fall up a
ladder. But for the moment we will carry on with Herman Kahn’s questionable
term.
(21) CBRNE stand for chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and
high-yield explosive. On the other hand, it is true that the “nuclear
weapons” category is itself a broad one, comprising both fission and
thermonuclear weapons that differ in explosive power by several orders of
magnitude – not altogether different in degree from the divide between
modern conventional munitions and atomic bombs.
(22) The sheer magnitude of the damage expected from a nuclear war was
foreshadowed by interwar expectation about the horrors that might be
expected from a second world war. See, for example, Uri Bialer, In the
Shadow of the Bomber (London: Royal Historical Society, 1980) and George H.
Quester, Deterrence Before Hiroshima (New York: Transaction Publishers,
1986).
(23) People concerned about anticipating potential threats to US security
in space some-times raise the specter of al Qaida or some other extremist
group gaining possession of a nuclear-armed ballistic missile and firing it
into space in order to damage American satellites. Setting aside the
aspects of such a scenario that make it far-fetched, were terrorists
actually to acquire such a weapon and insist on using it, it is hard to
think of a more benign place to have them detonate a nuclear warhead.
(24) Robert Preston et al., Space Weapons, Earth Wars (Santa Monica,
Calif.: RAND Corp., 2002).
(25) Bernard Brodie, ed., The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order
(San Diego: Harcourt, 1946); Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959).
(26) For example, Benjamin S. Lambeth, Mastering the Ultimate High Ground:
Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corp.,
2003).
(27) Often implicit in the “ultimate high ground” metaphor is an assumption
that higher is better, but of course this is not true of traditional high
ground. High mountain peaks are too far removed from things of military
importance, and are too inaccessible, to be of much practical military
interest – as the Siachen Glacier vividly illustrates. Similarly, for most
purposes, military aircraft are not optimized to operate at very high
altitudes.
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