Nuclear Warfare Policy: Cold War to Today: Part 2
Presidential Directive/NSC-59: Evolving Nuclear Strategy (July 1980) - Part 1 of 3
“What you need to do if you want to have an effective deterrent is to get into the mind of the Soviet leadership, figure out what they value, and hold it at risk.” - Frank Miller, Special Assistant to the President, NSC, defining the countervailing strategy.
PD-59/NSC-59
Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, has openly stated that he has modified the Russian nuclear doctrine and use, posing it as a threat for all intended purposes. Like Russia and the Soviet Union before it, the U.S. regularly modifies its national nuclear policies to adapt to evolving geopolitical situations, new technologies, and available weapons. History demonstrates that implementing such a significant change in a nuclear doctrine is not as simple as it seems, and it would require more time than the duration of a Russian press conference.
President Carter initiated a change to the U.S. strategic nuclear doctrine in 1977, and by 1980, his administration had largely completed it. This history sheds light on the validity of the Russian doctrine change. Was the Russian doctrine created after the start of the Ukraine War, or were the current threats made by President Putin already included in an existing document? The Carter Administration's changes to the American strategic force doctrine offer valuable insights into the rapid completion of current changes in Russia, given that nuclear policy necessitates numerous downstream changes.
President Jimmy Carter in August 1977 created Presidential Directive/NSC-18, sometimes referred to as PD-18. This document, classified under the subject heading of "U.S. National Strategy," dedicated half of its content to U.S. strategic nuclear forces. The directive merely summarized the direction of U.S. defense policy, instructing various administration leaders to establish working groups to formulate detailed plans for implementing the national policies outlined in PD-18. One of the directions of PD-18 was to update the U.S. nuclear policy from one that was based on Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, to creating options for fighting and winning a limited nuclear war. President Carter signed Presidential Directive/NSC-59, or PD-59, on July 25, 1980, providing further details of the nuclear targeting policy outlined in PD-18. The work of nearly three years provided clarity on how the U.S. was approaching how to fight a nuclear war.
PD-59 did not invalidate the U.S. policy of MAD and the need for nuclear parity with the Soviet Union, referred to as “nuclear equivalency, but it was meant to give the commander-in-chief more and flexible options over a general nuclear war, and it firmly stated that U.S. strategic nuclear forces were to serve as a deterrent in both the nuclear and conventional warfare realms. The directive outlined the following guidelines for implementing PD-18's strategic force objectives.
• U.S. strategic nuclear forces must deter nuclear attacks against the U.S., U.S. overseas forces, and U.S. allies.
• The U.S. strategic nuclear forces serve as a deterrent against non-nuclear attacks.
• Strategic nuclear equivalency (MAD) is still a valid policy.
o If nuclear deterrence fails, victory is to be denied to the adversary, and U.S. forces must be able to fight successfully to preserve the ability to negotiate an end of the fighting on terms favorable to the U.S.
• U.S. strategic nuclear forces employment must relate to conventional forces missions to meet policy objectives as determined by the National Command Authority.
This section of the directive outlines the purpose of the strategic nuclear forces, reaffirming that MAD remains a legitimate nuclear strategy that has been in place for over a decade. Nuclear equivalency is a primary component of MAD in that the strategic nuclear warheads between the U.S. and Soviet Union must remain at relatively identical numbers. Nuclear equivalency was key to the view of deterrence in a MAD nuclear-based policy. If the number of warheads between the two sides were to get out of balance, it could be viewed as giving the other side an advantage in initiating a general nuclear war due to the ability to inflict more damage and thus create an opening of having a nuclear advantage due to the balance of strategic forces favoring one side. This could encourage the opposing side to launch an attack, given their numerical advantage and the potential for a first strike, thereby enhancing their chances of victory.
Maintaining strategic balance is crucial for effective deterrence, and it illustrates how the MAD doctrine can trigger an arms race by increasing warheads to gain an edge or bridge perceived gaps. Balance of force, or equivalency, is what made deterrence work in this nuclear doctrine.
The points of denying victory to the enemy and the support of non-nuclear forces were part of an evolving strategy that was meant to provide the president flexibility on how strategic forces were to be used beyond just simply relying on MAD. While the force equivalency remained valid, the use of strategic forces could expand beyond a mere "nuclear spasm" of a general nuclear war. While President Carter's views on this matter were not entirely new, he made significant advancements by transforming U.S. strategic nuclear policy and targeting a limited nuclear war. He set specific goals to establish an escalating option to nuclear war, enabling an adversary to engage in negotiations to resolve the conflict before fully committing nuclear forces. This directive made the concept of a limited nuclear war another available option for the president.
The MAD doctrine included target classification, so the concept was not new in PD-59. However, it introduced the concept of attacking certain target classifications, either in whole or in part, to create favorable conditions to end the conflict or to evaluate continued escalation of attacks. The strategic nuclear targets fall into the following high-level categories:
• Counterforce involves focusing on the nuclear forces of an adversary. Striking these targets erodes the enemy's capability to launch its own nuclear attack.
• Countervalue is a strategy that involves targeting an enemy's cities and civilian populations while also considering the economic factors of production.
• Countervailing involves targeting the enemies' most valuable targets used to maintain military and political control over their country.
Prior to the Carter administration, target classifications such as counterforce and countervalue were already in place, but he introduced additional flexibility on how to attack and reduce each category. Countervailing was a novel classification that was based on determining what the Soviet leadership needed or valued most within their society and making them the priority targets in a limited nuclear war to create both another level of deterrence and to incentivize an end to the nuclear exchange on terms most favorable to the U.S.
Countervailing is dedicated to the following targets:
• Command and control capabilities
• Military forces—nuclear and non-nuclear
• Industrial facilities
• Political leadership
President Carter stated that upgrading the U.S. strategic nuclear forces was necessary to make countervailing a successful deterrent and targeting strategy. The primary capabilities needed to make countervailing successful were C3, command, control, and communications, as well as intelligence to identify targets and conduct bomb damage assessment. The capability did not only need to be built and functional enough; it also had to have the protection and redundancy to withstand a counterforce attack from the Soviet Union.
Countervailing is the primary factor that enables a limited nuclear war to transform into a doctrine, providing an incentive to establish conditions that could force an end to the conflict before an action-reaction cycle escalates into a general nuclear war. A successful countervailing attack will erode both the will and capability of the enemy to continue the war, as they would already be at a severe disadvantage. It could incentivize a negotiated settlement on terms favorable to the U.S.
The argument against countervailing is that unless it is part of a counterforce attack, the Soviet Union would still have its strategic nuclear forces and could initiate a countervalue attack against a helpless population in the U.S., which would most likely mean a countervalue attack by American bombers and submarines against the Soviet Union. Targeting the political leadership could potentially weaken the Soviet Union's command structure, but could it also hinder their ability to negotiate a resolution to the conflict? Or, if political power is more important than its people, would it incentivize the Soviets to commit to a general nuclear war, as they would have nothing to lose?
Future articles over the next few weeks will continue exploring PD-59 and how it shaped U.S. strategic nuclear doctrine.
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Really interesting thank you!