Why We Need ICBMs: Weapons of Mass Destruction That Keep the Peace

By Peter Huessy, Warrior Maven Senior Nuclear Weapons Analyst, Senior Fellow Warrior Maven, Atlantic Council, Hudson Institute — President of Geo-Strategic Analysis

(Washington, D.C.) Nearly three years ago, the Louisiana Tech Research Institute, LTRI, sponsored a book project that in late summer 2020 resulted in the publication of a compendium of essays on nuclear deterrence and modernization. The “Guide to Nuclear Deterrence in the Age of Great-Power Competition” brought together twenty-two authors who dissected the complex strategic environment and explain how credible nuclear capability is the bedrock of America’s defense. According to LTRI, “To be credible, America must compete as Russia and China modernize to challenge international norms. This thought-provoking book will answer the reader’s question, ‘why does nuclear deterrence matter to me?’”

Nuclear Deterrence

The idea was originally a joint project idea put forward by top nuclear expert Adam Lowther and this author with the idea of bringing together in one publication the best ideas and analysis in the nuclear arena. After its publication, some in the disarmament community claimed the book actually advocated fighting a nuclear war and complained that although the writers were all senior professionals in the strategic nuclear arena, graduate students and non-nuclear professionals should also have a say about nuclear policy.

Well, there is a reason we don’t ask graduate students to make decisions about nuclear deterrence. They lack judgment and usually have little knowledge of history, and often become adherents to very strange and daffy ideas such as a nuclear freeze or unilateral concessions as the best means of promoting strategic stability.

For example, an idea put forward by the Union of Concerned Scientist (UCS) book critique was that since land based ballistic missiles are going out favor in the arsenals of the world’s nuclear powers, the United States would lose nothing by unilaterally eliminating its own MMIII land based missiles and forgoing acquisition of the new Sentinel land based missile system currently slated to be deployed around the end this decade.

What in fact is the evidence for the UCS claim?

Russia and China are collectively building 12 new types of fixed and mobile land-based missiles of varying capability, to say nothing of the submarine launched and cruise missiles and bombers they are also building. India and Pakistan are both building land based ballistic missiles; and North Korea has just test fired a solid fueled land-based missile on top of its current deployment of liquid fueled land-based rockets. Iran although not yet a nuclear power has the largest arsenal of ballistic missiles in the Middle East; including land-based missiles of varying ranges, while China has tested more ballistic missiles in the last year than the rest of the world combined and is undertaking what the past two commanders of US Strategic Command have both described as “breath taking.”