By Peter R. Huessy, Senior Warrior Nuclear Weapons Analyst
With the pending end of the New START treaty in 2026, the buildup of China’s nuclear forces, the cooperation among the “axis of evil,”* the multiple nuclear threats by Russia’s Putin, the Iranian recklessness in launching thousands of missiles and rockets at Israel, the Houthis taking down Red Sea western commercial shipping, and the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, the concern grows that the world is spinning out of control.
This apparent loss of deterrence or as Victor Davis Hanson put it “the loss of consequences for rogue behavior” foretells a world of escalating conflict just when at the same time nuclear competition is growing. But even worse, after 2026 there may be no numerical limits to nuclear arsenals, an important point underscored by the remarks of a top White House official this past week.
This gloomy prospect in turn has generated proposals to remedy the deteriorating deterrent position of the US and its allies. Some United States nuclear options being discussed are positive including (1) acquiring enhanced nuclear capabilities (the Posture Commission); (2) adding numerically to the US nuclear deployed arsenal (the Biden administration); (3) incorporating an additional nuclear component into the annual defense bill, (Senators King, Wicker and Fischer); and (4) expanding the defense budget initially with $55 billion more spending annually for conventional and nuclear modernization (Senator Wicker.). Other ideas however are downright dangerous such as (5) withdrawing the US extended deterrent from NATO and our western Pacific allies (Quincy Institute); (6) adopting a minimal deterrent strategy as part of a new arms control framework agreement with Russia (Korb and Cimbala); or (7) killing the ICBM leg of the Triad (Senator Markey and Representative Garamendi).
The uncertainty about our country’s security is rooted in an understanding that since the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet empire, the assumed peaceful unipolar world of the United States on the one hand and everyone else on the other (the “end of history” framework) has not gone well. Only Desert Storm, (1991) the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq (2001 and 2003) and the destruction of ISIS (2019) were foreign policy “successes” as the initial toppling of evil regimes and the wipeout of ISIS were accomplished with stunning skill and speed.
But now there seems to be little sustained success in US security policy. The US has withdrawn without achieving any key objectives in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the Taliban back in power and the Iranians holding considerable away over not only Iraq, but Lebanon, Yemen and Syria as well. Russia has invaded Ukraine twice and paid no price for its incursions into Georgia and Moldova. China thumbs its nose at the International Court while claiming vast areas of the Pacific as its own territory.
As a result of the defeat of the DPRK in 1953 after its cross-border aggression, terrorism and the companion wars of national liberation became the centerpiece of Soviet aggression around the world. State directed or sponsored terrorism was as General Scowcroft warned about nuclear armed missiles “the coin of the realm.”
The war against South Vietnam began as early as 1954 as a guerrilla terror campaign directed by the North, masquerading as “homegrown.” It took 21 years for communism to prevail, but it was accomplished ironically by a conventional cross border invasion with 18 divisions with hundreds of Soviet tanks, precipitated by the abandonment of the South by the US Congress and a “peace agreement” that left the north’s Army throughout South Vietnam. By reneging on its promise to assist the South with military aid, the Congress triggered not only the fall of Saigon but a few months earlier the fall of Cambodia.
When asked why “détente,” Dr. Henry Kissinger explained after the fall of Saigon, there was “no appetite for another war” especially “not against the Soviet Union.” And thus, the adopted alternative was the weak policy of what was termed “détente” and the hoped for resulting “peaceful coexistence.”
Peter Huessy, Warrior Nuclear Weapons Analyst – (No longer with Hudson but a Senior Fellow With Think Deterrence)
But there was no détente and peaceful coexistence extended by the Soviets, despite the window dressing of the Paris “peace agreement” on Vietnam, the ABM and SALT agreements and Nixon’s trip to China. The Soviets, having triumphed in all of Indo-China, continued to make subversion and guerrilla war a center piece of their security strategy, proclaiming in secret documents that the “correlation of forces” was moving so rapidly toward Moscow that the Kremlin could see the eventual defeat of America.
Over that near decade of détente, additional countries succumbed to Soviet directed terrorism and subversion so that by 1980, 20 nations had joined the Soviet bloc—Cuba, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Grenada, Nicaragua, Angola, Guinea Baso, Laos, Cambodia, South Vietnam, Yemen, Tibet, Burma, Sudan, Benin, Cape Verde, Madagascar, Somalia, Seychelles, and Afghanistan. Many other nations were targeted but failed to be destroyed including most notably El Salvador and Columbia because the Reagan and Bush41 administrations woke up America and defended freedom by firmly assisting the people of both nations.
Unfortunately, so weakened had the US deterrent strength become that nations fell to totalitarianism even beyond the shadowy influence of the USSR. In 1979, the Iranian regime fell to the radical Shia mullahs, after US President Carter pleaded with French President Mitterrand to grant an exit visa to Khomeini so the cleric—-described by the American administration as a “man of the cloth”—could return to Iran.
Forty-five years later and now allied with Russia and China, Iran has seized significant power in what is a “Shia Crescent” from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, through sponsoring and directing terror groups such as the Houthis (Yemen and the Red Sea), Hezbollah (Lebanon and Syria), Hamas (Gaza) and Islamic Jihad (West Bank and Gaza).
Now deterrence was re-established by President Reagan with both the economic resurgence of the US economy and the rebuilding of the US military with the coordinated and heroic partnerships with key allies Prime Minister Thatcher, Chancellor Kohl and John Paul II the Pontiff. New policies emerged quickly. Concessionary bank loans to Eastern Europe were ended. Oil production boomed under Saudi leadership and Moscow’s exchequer lost billions. The Kuwaiti tankers were reflagged to protect them from Iran attacks that when briefly continued led to the Iranian “navy” being waxed.
Gaddafi’s aggression in the Mediterranean ended with air strikes on Tripoli. Cuban and Soviet subversion in Latin America was defeated in Nicaragua and El Salvador where freedom fighters in both nations prevailed. In Grenada, its liberation was the first real estate taken from the USSR empire since 1917. The Northern Alliance successfully kicked the Soviets out of Afghanistan, and Solidarity, preserved through assistance from the US, won the Polish Presidency in the first free election in the history of the Soviet empire.
All these policies were implemented by the United States and in most cases with bi-partisan support. In a short decade, the USSR imploded from the economic war and peace through strength strategy of the Americans. The key ingredient to the success was to make sure there were serious consequences for rogue state behavior including state sponsorship of terrorism.
Today, it may be the United States has forgotten this important lesson. Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are all in on the myriad arm
ed attacks around the globe. It is a coordinated war against the West and it ranges from: (1) expanding an illegal military presence in the South China Sea; (2) the selling of illicit drugs to America’s youth through Triad and Mexican drug gangs; (3) the Chinese stealing of US intellectual property; (4) arming Houthi’s to shut down Red Sea western commercial traffic especially oil tankers; (5) invading Ukraine (violating the lesson of the Korean and Falklands and Kuwait wars that cross border invasions may not succeed!); (6), attacking Israel with thousands of rockets and missiles, or (7) burning down an entire Polish shopping center.
The great fault of the “War on Terror” or GWOT, was not understanding that terrorism was a tactic long adopted by rogue states wishing to avoid the consequences of direct aggression, such as the DPRK invasion of the ROK (1951), Argentina’s invasion of the Falklands (1983), and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (1990). In these three instances the rogue invading nations were easily identified and thus defeated.
While state sponsored terrorism was the key strategy of our enemies, the adopted paradigm of the United States and the European Union was that terrorist groups were not instruments of a state directed strategy aimed at defeating the United States but the outgrowth of weak stateless groups with legitimate grievances particularly the failure of the West to protect Palestinian rights, most notably a state of their own.
However, the Islamic terror aimed at the West and Israel would not be terminated if a Palestinian state were adopted, as the Palestinian authorities have never proposed nor accepted any such two-state solution and continue to this day seeking the destruction of Israel “from the river to the sea.” The terror groups, whether Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, cannot be appeased, nor can their terror masters. They can, however, be defeated. Which is what Israel is trying to accomplish in Gaza with respect to Hamas. Note the vehemence with which our enemies are fighting to prevent that Israeli objective from being achieved, even creating a nation-wide protest in America supporting Hamas with millions in information warfare funding from shadowy foreign sources.
To properly respond to the weakened state of deterrence, it will be necessary to go beyond the required enhancement of our military capability of more nuclear and conventional forces. It will require a serious campaign to close the southern border to drug and human trafficking; prevent China from raising trillions in the US capital markets; dramatically expand US oil and gas production to significantly reduce revenue income to Russia and Iran; de-couple the American manufacturing economy from China; and take seriously the Chinese communist party inroads in the Western Hemisphere.
Otherwise, all the much-needed military investments will be for naught. President Reagan did not defeat the USSR with just a policy of peace through military strength—he primarily waged what the President himself described as an “economic war” against Moscow.
The founder of the Institute for World Politics John Lenczowski has recently published a long blue-print on what the US policy should be with respect to winning what he describes as the second Cold War but against China, which incorporates military and economic efforts together to do the job. And the gentleman should know as Lenczowski was one of the architects during the Reagan administration of the strategy that took down the Soviet Union.
The recommendations that are now on the table must be looked at in this context. The added military capabilities that need to go forward are reasonable and hopefully Congress will see fit to approve. But the unilateral cuts to the Nuclear Triad make no sense and are refighting political fights of the 1980’s that the disarmament community lost decisively. And Korb’s idea of minimal deterrence or simply reducing Russian and United States overall force levels to arbitrary levels of between 500-1000 warheads while leaving out China is absurd. Especially in the force structure being proposed would leave the United States with over 200 retaliatory weapons vs the Russians with less than 40! Not sure Russia is going to be in such a generous mood to accept such a deal.
But without understanding the other elements of the unrestricted warfare being waged against America risks buying good fire insurance but forgetting the coming hurricane. Making nuclear deterrence more credible must be seen in the context of upholding all other deterrent capabilities. Critics complained at the time that the US military and our nuclear deterrent did not prevent 9-11 or the CV-19 pandemic. But neither did the FBI, the Coast Guard, the Justice Department, the Department of Education or the Border Patrol prevent these two attacks. In fact, we helped fund the CV research in Wuhan, and our lax immigration laws facilitated 9-11.
For example, three of the hijacking terrorists had violated immigration laws. But even when stopped by police for traffic violations they were not identified as having overstayed their visas because the law prevented police from checking on their immigration status. Again, your home is not safe if you have fire but not flood insurance.
According to a recent broadcast of the Committee on the Present Danger-China, the China based criminal drug gangs or Triads, are deliberately preying on American youths through the drug trade and operating in every major American city. Fentanyl manufactured in China goes to the Mexican and Chinese drug cartels that bring narcotics into the United States, primarily over the southern border. As a result, 108,000 Americans die every year from drug overdoses. More Americans now die every year than US soldiers that died in the nearly 50 cumulative years of wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. And with a policy of deliberately leaving the southern border wide open, we are again attacking ourselves.
As the Posture Commission underscored, the nuclear and conventional programs of record are all necessary but not adequate as better military capabilities are needed. But not just military capabilities.
The US is losing the information war overseas on Hamas terrorism and the drug war here at home. The US embraces China’s economic bullying here at home but in China more greenhouse gases are added each year than all of Europe and North America reductions combined. Russia is killing thousands of people in Ukraine, but the US is creating sanctuaries from which Russia is immune from attack. Iran attacks throughout the Middle East but receives from the US a $100 billion gift in unfrozen oil sales revenue that was previously sanctioned.
Our enemies are cooperating and in loose alliances aiming to destroy us. The US to prevail must coordinate our policies and strategies, a whole of government effort, to keep the world from spinning out of control to where our destiny might indeed be to come face to face with nuclear Armageddon.
*North Korea, Iran, China and Russia.
